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Discovery, Conquest, and 
Early History of the 

Philippine Islands 



Of this work five hundred copies are issued sep- 
arately from "The Philippine Islands, 14Q3-18Q8" in 
fifty-five volumes. 




■ 




H^HHH 



Fernao de Magalhaes 

\From painting in Museo-Biblioteca de Ultramar, Madrid] 



DISCOVERY, CONQUEST, AND 
EARLY HISTORY OF THE 

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 



BY 



Edward Gaylord Bourne 



WITH MAPS AND PLATES 



BEING A SEPARATE ISSUE OF THE HISTORICAL 

INTRODUCTION TO BLAIR & ROBERTSON'S 

"THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: 1493-1898" 




Cleveland, Ohio 

The Arthur H. Clark Company 

1907 



USKARY of CONGRESS 
TWO GoDie? R%lelV9d 

FEB 11 190r 

--rCopyrlgrht Eftry 

CLASS f\ XXC„ Ni 

copr b. ' 






COPYRIGHT I907 
THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 

by 
Edward Gaylord Bourne 

The American people are confronted with two 
race problems, one within their own confines and 
long familiar but still baffling solution; the other, 
new, remote, unknown, and even more imperatively 
demanding intelligent and unremitting effort for its 
mastery. 

In the first case there are some eight millions of 
people ultimately derived from various savage tribes 
in Africa but long since acclimatized, disciplined to 
labor, raised to civilized life, Christianized, and by 
the acquisition of the English language brought 
within a world of ideas inaccessible to their ancestors. 
Emancipated by the fortune of war they are now 
living intermingled with a ruling race, in it, but not 
of it, in an unsettled social status, oppressed by the 
stigma of color and harassed and fettered by race 
prejudice. 

In the other case there are six or seven millions of 
Malays whose ancestors were raised from barbarism, 
taught the forms and manners of civilized life, Chris- 
tianized, and trained to labor by Catholic missionar- 
ies three centuries ago. A common religion and a 
common government have effaced in large measure 



20 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

earlier tribal differences and constituted them a 
people ; yet in the fullest sense of the word a peculiar 
people. They stand unique as the only large mass of 
Asiatics converted to Christianity in modern times. 
They have not, like the African, been brought within 
the Christian pale by being torn from their natural 
environment and schooled through slavery; but, in 
their own home and protected from general contact 
with Europeans until recent times, they have been 
moulded through the patient teaching, parental 
discipline, and self-sacrificing devotion of the mis- 
sionaries into a whole unlike any similar body 
elsewhere in the world. They, too, by the fortunes of 
war have lost their old rulers and guides and against 
their will submit their future to alien hands. To 
govern them or to train them to govern themselves 
are tasks almost equally perplexing, nor is the prob- 
lem made easier or clearer by the clash of contradic- 
tory estimates of their culture and capacity which 
form the ammunition of party warfare. 

What is needed is as thorough and intelligent a 
knowledge of their political and social evolution as a 
people as can be gained from a study of their history. 
In the case of the Negro problem the historical 
sources are abundant and accessible and the slavery 
question is accorded, preeminent attention in the 
study of American history. In the Philippine ques- 
tion, however, although the sources are no less 
abundant and instructive they are and have been 
highly inaccessible owing, on the one hand, to the 
absolute rarity of the publications containing them, 
and, on the other, to their being in a language 
hitherto comparatively little studied in the United 
States. To collect these sources, scattered and inac- 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 21 

cessible as they are, to reproduce them and interpret 
them in the English language, and to make it possible 
for university and public libraries and the leaders in 
thought and policy to have at hand the complete and 
authentic records of the culture and life of the mil- 
lions in the Far East whom we must understand in 
order to do them justice, is an enterprise large in its 
possibilities for the public good. 

In accordance with the idea that underlies this 
collection this Introduction will not discuss the 
Philippine question of today nor Philippine life 
during the last half century, nor will it give a 
short history of the Islands since the conquest. For 
all these the reader may be referred to recent 
publications like those of Foreman, Sawyer^ or 
Worcester, or earlier ones like those of Bowring and 
Mallat, or to the works republished in the series. The 
aim of the Introduction is rather to give the discovery 
and conquest of the Philippines their setting in the 
history of geographical discovery, to review the 
unparalleled achievements of the early conquerors 
and missionaries, to depict the government and com- 
merce of the islands before the revolutionary changes 
of the last century, and to give such a survey, even 
thougllfragmentary, of Philippine life and culture 
under the old regime as will bring into relief their 
peculiar features and, if possible, to show that 
although the annals of the Philippines may be dry 
reading, the history of the Philippine people is a sub- 
ject of deep and singular interest. 

The Philippine Islands in situation and inhabitants 
belong to the Asiatic world, but, for the first three 
centuries of their recorded history, they were in a 
sense a dependency of America, and now the whirli- 



22 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. I 

gig of time has restored them in their political rela- 
tions to the Western Hemisphere. As a dependency 
of New Spain they constituted the extreme western 
verge of the Spanish dominions and were commonly 
known as the Western Islands * (Las Islas del 
Poniente). Their discovery and conquest rounded 
out an empire which in geographical extent far sur- 
passed anything the world had then seen. When 
the sun rose in Madrid, it was still early afternoon of 
the preceding day in Manila, and Philip II was the 
first monarch who could boast that the sun never set 
upon his dominions. 2 

In one generation, i486- 1522, the two little powers 
of the Iberian Peninsula had extended their sway 
over the seas until they embraced the globe. The way 
had been prepared for this unparalleled achievement 
by the courage and devotion of the Portuguese Prince 
Henry the Navigator, who gave his life to the ad- 
vancement of geographical discovery and of Portu- 
guese commerce. The exploration of the west coast 
of Africa was the school of the navigators who sailed 
to the East and the West Indies, and out of the ad- 

1 The Philippine Islands, Moluccas, Siam, Cambodia, Japan, 
and China at the close of the Sixteenth Century, by Antonio de 
Morga, Hakluyt Society, London, 1868, p. 265. This will be 
cited usually as Morga. 

2 " The crown and sceptre of Spain has come to extend itself 
over all that the sun looks on, from its rising to its setting." 
Morga, p. 6. Down to the end of the year 1844 the Manilan 
calendar was reckoned after that of Spain, that is, Manila time 
was about sixteen hours slower than Madrid time. Finally, with 
the approval of the Archbishop in 1844, the thirty-first of De- 
cember was dropped and the Philippines transferred, so to speak, 
into the Eastern Hemisphere. Thenceforward Manila time was 
about eight hours ahead of Madrid time. Jagor: Reisen in den 
Philippinen, pp. 1-2. 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 23 

ministration of the trade with Africa grew the 
colonial systems of later days. 

In the last quarter of the fifteenth century the 
increasing obstructions in Egypt and by the Turks to 
the trade with the East Indies held out a great prize 
to the discoverer of an all-sea route to the Spice 
Islands. Bartholomew Diaz and Vasco da Gama 
solved this problem for Portugal, but the solution 
offered to Spain by Columbus and accepted in 1492 
revealed a New World, the Indies of the West. 

The King of Portugal, zealous to retain his 
monopoly of African and eastern exploration, and 
the pious sovereigns of Spain, desirous to build their 
colonial empire on solid and unquestioned founda- 
tions, alike appealed to the Pope for a definition of 
their rights and a confirmation of their claims. The 
world seemed big enough and with a spacious liber- 
ality Pope Alexander VI granted Ferdinand and 
Isabella the right to explore and to take possession of 
all the hitherto unknown and heathen parts of the 
world west of a certain line drawn north and south 
in the Atlantic Ocean. East of that line the rights of 
Portugal, resting on their explorations and the grants 
of earlier popes, were confirmed. 

The documentary history of the Philippines begins 
with the Demarcation Bulls and the treaty of Torde- 
sillas, for out of them grew Magellan's voyage and 
the discovery of the islands; and without them the 
Philippines would no doubt have been occupied by 
Portugal and later have fallen a prey to the Dutch as 
did the Moluccas. 

King John of Portugal was dissatisfied with the 
provisions of the Demarcation Bulls. He held that 
the treaty between Spain and Portugal in 1479 had 



24 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

resigned to Portugal the field of oceanic discovery, 
Spain retaining only the Canaries ; and he felt that a 
boundary line only a hundred leagues west of the 
Azores not only was an infringement on his rights but 
would be a practical embarrassment in that it would 
not allow his sailors adequate sea room for their 
African voyages. 

His first contention was hardly valid ; the second, 
however, was reasonable and, as Columbus had esti- 
mated the distance from the Canaries to the new 
islands at over nine hundred leagues, the Catholic 
sovereigns were disposed to make concessions. By 
the treaty of Tordesillas, June 7, 1494, it was agreed 
that the Demarcation Line should be drawn three 
hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape Verde 
Islands. 3 This treaty accepted the principle of the 
Papal arbitration but shifted the boundary to a posi- 
tion supposed to be half-way between the Cape Verde 
Islands and the newly discovered islands of Cipangu 
and Antilia. 4 

Neither in the Papal Bulls nor in the Treaty of 
Tordesillas was there any specific reference to an 
extension of the Line around the globe or to a division 
of the world. The arrangement seems to have con- 
templated a free field for the exploration and con- 
quest of the unknown parts of the world, to the east- 
ward for Portugal, and to the westward for Spain. If 

3 For a fuller account of the negotiations relating to these bulls 
and the Treaty of Tordesillas see Harrisse: Diplomatic History 
of America, 1452-1494, S. E. Dawson: The Lines of Demarcation 
of Pope Alexander VI and the Treaty of Tordesillas, or E. G. 
Bourne: Essays in Historical Criticism. The texts are printed 
in this volume. 

4 The names used by Columbus in his interview with the King 
of Portugal. Ruy de Pina: Chronica d'el rey Joao II, Collecao 
de Livros Ineditos de Historia Portugueze, ii, p. 177. 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 25 

they should cross each other's tracks priority of dis- 
covery would determine the ownership. 5 

The suggestion of the extension of the line around 
the globe and of the idea that Spain was entitled to 
what might be within the hemisphere set off by the 
Demarcation Line and its extension to the antipodes 
does not appear until the time of Magellan, and it is 
then that we first meet the notion that the Pope had 
divided the world between Spain and Portugal like 
an orange. 6 

The Portuguese reached India in 1498. Thirteen 
years later Albuquerque made conquest of Malacca 
of the Malay Peninsula, the great entrepot of the 
spice trade; but even then the real goal, the islands 
where the spices grow, had not been attained. The 
command of the straits, however, promised a near 
realization of so many years of labor, and, as soon 
as practicable, in December 151 1, Albuquerque 
despatched Antonio d'Abreu in search of the precious 
islands. A Spanish historian of the next century 
affirms that Magellan accompanied d'Abreu in com- 
mand of one of the ships, but this can hardly be true. T 
Francisco Serrao, however, one of the Portuguese 
captains, was a friend of Magellan's and during his 
sojourn of several years in the Moluccas wrote to him 
of a world larger and richer than that discovered by 

5 This is also Harrisse's view, Diplomatic History of America, 
p. 74- 

6 " Sabese la concession del Papa Alexandre ; la division del 
mundo como una naranja." Letter of Alonso de Zuazo to Charles 
V, January 22, 15 18. Docs. Ined. de Indias, i, p. 296 (From Har- 
risse, p. 174). Cf. also Maximilianus Transylvanus in First 
Voyage Round the World by Magellan. Hakluyt Society, p. 185. 

7 The question is fully discussed in Guillemard's Life of Ferdi- 
nand Magellan, pp. 68-69. 



26 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. I 

Vasco da Gama. It is probable, as the historian 
Barros, who saw some of this correspondence, sug- 
guests, that Serrao somewhat exaggerated the dis- 
tance from Malacca to the Moluccas, and so planted 
the seed which bore such fruit in Magellan's mind. 8 
The year after the Portuguese actually attained 
the Spice Islands, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, first of 
Europeans (1513), set eyes upon the great South Sea. 
It soon became only too certain that the Portuguese 
had won in the race for the land of cloves, pepper, 
and nutmegs. But, in the absence of knowledge of 
the true dimensions of the earth and with an under- 
estimate of its size generally prevailing, the informa- 
tion that the Spice Islands lay far to the east of India 
revived in the mind of Magellan the original project 
of Columbus to seek the land of spices by the west- 
ward route. That he laid this plan before the King 
of Portugal, there seems good reason to believe, but 
when he saw no prospect for its realization, like 
Columbus, he left Portugal for Spain. It is now that 
the idea is evolved that, as the Moluccas lie so far 
east of India, they are probably in the Spanish half of 
the world, and, if approached from the west, may be 
won after all for the Catholic king. No appeal for 
patronage and support could be more effective, and 
how much reliance Magellan and his financial backer 
Christopher Haro placed upon it in their petition to 
King Charles appears clearly in the account by Maxi- 
milianus Transylvanus of Magellan's presentation of 
his project: " They both showed Caesar that though 
it was not yet quite sure whether Malacca was within 
the confines of the Spaniards or the Portuguese, be- 

8 Guillemard, Magellan, p. 71. 




Map of South America and An- 
Jan Huygen van Linschoten 

[From original (in colors), 




tilles (showing Strait of Magellan) 
(Amstelredam, M. D. XCVl) 

in Boston Public Library] 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 27 

cause, as yet, nothing of the longitude had been 
clearly proved, yet, it was quite plain that the Great 
Gulf and the people of Sinae lay within the Spanish 
boundary. This too was held to be most certain, that 
the islands which they call the Moluccas, in which all 
spices are produced, and are thence exported to 
Malacca, lay within the Spanish western division, 
and that it was possible to sail there ; and that spices 
could be brought thence to Spain more easily, and at 
less expense and cheaper, as they come direct from 
their native place." 9 

Equally explicit was the contract which Magellan 
entered into with King Charles : " Inasmuch as you 
bind yourself to discover in the dominions which 
belong to us and are ours in the Ocean Sea within the 
limits of our demarcation, islands and mainlands and 
rich spiceries, etc." This is followed by an injunc- 
tion " not to discover or do anything within the 
demarcation and limits of the most serene King of 
Portugal." 10 

Las Casas, the historian of the Indies, was present 
in Valladolid when Magellan came thither to present 
his plan to the King. " Magellan," he writes, " had a 
well painted globe in which the whole world was 
depicted, and on it he indicated the route he proposed 
to take, saving that the strait was left purposely blank 
so that no one should anticipate him. And on that 
day and at that hour I was in the office of the High 
Chancellor when the Bishop [of Burgos, Fonseca] 
brought it [*. e. the globe] and showed the High 
Chancellor the voyage which was proposed; and, 

9 First Voyage Round the World by Magellan, p. 187. 

10 Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos, etc., 
iv, p. 117. 



28 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

speaking with Magellan, I asked him what way he 
planned to take, and he answered that he intended to 
go by Cape Saint Mary, which we call the Rio de la 
Plata and from thence to follow the coast up until he 
hit upon the strait. But suppose you do not find any 
strait by which you can go into the other sea. He 
replied that if he did not find any strait that he would 
go the way the Portuguese took. — This Fernando de 
Magalhaens must have been a man of courage and 
valiant in his thoughts and for undertaking great 
things, although he was not of imposing presence 
because he was small in stature and did not appear in 
himself to be much." X1 

Such were the steps by which the Papal Demarca- 
tion Line led to the first circumnavigation of the 
globe, the greatest single human achievement on the 
sea. 12 The memorable expedition set out from Seville 
September 20, 15 19. A year elapsed before the en- 
trance to the strait named for the great explorer was 
discovered. Threading its sinuous intricacies con- 
sumed thirty-eight days and then followed a terrible 
voyage of ninety-eight days across a truly pathless 
sea. The first land seen was the little group of islands 
called Ladrones from the thievishness of the inhabit- 
ants, and a short stay was made at Guam. About two 
weeks later, the middle of March, the little fleet 
reached the group of islands which we know as 
the Philippines but which Magellan named the 

11 Las Casas: Historia de las Indias. Col. de Docs. Ined. para 
la Historia de Espaha, lxv, pp. 376-377. This account by Las 
Casas apparently has been overlooked by English writers on 
Magellan. It is noticed by Peschel, Geschichte des Zeitalters der 
Entdeckungen, p. 488. 

12 See Guillemard's comparison between the voyages of Colum- 
bus and Magellan in Life of Magellan, p. 258. 




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1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 29 

islands of St. Lazarus, from the saint whose day and 
feast were celebrated early in his stay among them. 13 

The calculations of the longitude showed that these 
islands were well within the Spanish half of the 
world and the success with which a Malay slave of 
Magellan, brought from Sumatra, made himself 
understood 14 indicated clearly enough that they were 
not far from the Moluccas and that the object of the 
expedition, to discover a westward route to the Spice 
Islands, and to prove them to be within the Spanish 
demarcation, was about to be realized. But Magellan, 
like Moses, was vouchsafed only a glimpse of the 
Promised Land. That the heroic and steadfast navi- 
gator should have met his death in a skirmish with a 
few naked savages when in sight of his goal, is one of 
the most pathetic tragedies in history. 15 

The difficulties, however, of approaching the Mo- 
luccas by the western route through the straits of 
Magellan (that Cape Horn could be rounded was 
not discovered till 16 16), the stubborn and defiant 
attitude of the King of Portugal in upholding his 
claims, the impossibility of a scientific and exact de- 
termination of the Demarcation Line in the absence 
of accurate means for measuring longitude, — all 
these, reinforced by the pressure of financial strin- 
gency led King Charles in 1529 to relinquish all 
claims to or rights to trade with the Moluccas for 

13 See Pigafetta's account in The First Voyage Round the 
World by Magellan, p. 74. 

14 Pigafetta, ibid., p. 76. 

15 The description of the Philippines and their inhabitants which 
we owe to the Italian Pigafetta who accompanied Magellan is espe- 
cially noteworthy not only as the first European account of them, 
but also as affording a gauge by which to estimate the changes 
wrought by the Spanish conquest and the missions. 



30 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

three hundred and fifty thousand ducats. 16 In the 
antipodes a Demarcation Line was to be drawn from 
pole to pole seventeen degrees on the equator, or two 
hundred and ninety-seven leagues east of the Moluc- 
cas, and it was agreed that the subjects of the 
King of Castile should neither sail or trade beyond 
that line, or carry anything to the islands or lands 
within it. 17 If a later scientific and accurate deter- 
mination should substantiate the original claims of 
either party the money should be returned ls and the 
contract be dissolved. Although the archipelago of 
St. Lazarus was not mentioned in this treaty it was a 
plain renunciation of any rights over the Philippines 
for they lie somewhat to the west of the Moluccas. 

The King of Spain, however, chose to ignore this 
fact and tacitly assumed the right to conquer the 
Philippines. It was, however, thirteen years before 
another attempt was made in this direction. By this 
time the conquest and development of the kingdom 
of New Spain made one of its ports on the Pacific the 
natural starting point. This expedition commanded 
by Rui Lopez de Villalobos was despatched in 1542 
and ended disastrously. The Portuguese Captain- 
general in the Moluccas made several vigorous pro- 
tests against the intrusion, asserting that Mindanao 
fell within the Portuguese Demarcation and that they 

16 See E. G. Bourne: Essays in Historical Criticism, pp. 209-2 1 1 
for an account of the Badajos Junta which attempted to settle the 
question of the rights to the Moluccas. The documents are in 
Navarrete, iv, pp. 333-370, a somewhat abridged translation of 
which is presented in this volume. Sandoval attributes the sale 
of the Moluccas to Charles's financial straits. Navarrete, iv, xx. 
The treaty of sale is in Navarrete, iv, pp. 389-406. 

17 Navarrete, iv, p. 394. 

18 Navarrete, iv, p. 396. 



J4931529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 3 1 

had made some progress in introducing Chris- 
tianity. 19 

Villalobos left no permanent mark upon the islands 
beyond giving the name " Felipinas " to some of 
them, in honor of " our fortunate Prince." 20 

Nearly twenty years elapsed before another expe- 
dition was undertaken, but this was more carefully 
organized than any of its predecessors, and four or 
five years were absorbed in the preparations. King 
Philip II, while respecting the contract with Portu- 
gal in regard to the Moluccas, proposed to ignore its 
provisions in regard to other islands included within 
the Demarcation Line of 1529. In his first despatch 
relative to this expedition in 1559 he enjoins that it 
shall not enter the Moluccas but go " to other islands 
that are in the same region as are the Philippines and 
others that were outside the said contract, but within 
our demarcation, that are said to produce spices." 21 

Friar Andres de Urdaneta, who had gone to the 
Moluccas with Loaisa in 1525, while a layman and a 
sailor, explained to the king that as la isla Filipina 
was farther west than the Moluccas the treaty of 
Zaragoza was just as binding in the case of these 

19 See the correspondence in Col. de Doc. Ineditos de Ultramar, 
vol. ii (vol. i of subdivision de las Islas Filipinas), p. 66. 

20 Relacion del Viaje que hizo desde la Nueva-Espaha a las 
Islas del Poniente Ruy Gomez de Villalobos, written by Garcia 
Descalante Alvarado. Coleccion de Docs. Ined. del Archivo de 
Indias v, p. 127. The name was first given in July or August 
1543 to some of the smaller islands in the group. On page 122, 
Alvarado writes " chinos que vienen a Mindanao y a las Phili- 
pinas." Montero y Vidal says that the island first to receive the 
name was Leyte. Hist. Gen. de Filipinos, i, p. 27. In 1 561, 
Urdaneta uses " las islas Filipinas " in the ordinary way ; see his 
*' Derrotero " prepared for the expedition. Col. Docs. Ined. vol. 
i, p. 130 ff. 

21 Col. de Docs. Ined. de Ultramar, vol. ii, pp. 95-96. 



32 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

islands as in that of the Moluccas, and that to avoid 
trouble some " legitimate or pious reason for the ex- 
pedition should be assigned such as the rescue of sail- 
ors who had been lost on the islands in previous expe- 
ditions or the determination of the longitude of the 
Demarcation Line." 22 

It is clear from the sequel that King Philip 
intended, as has been said, to shut his eyes to the appli- 
cation of the Treaty of Zaragoza to the Philippines. 
As they did not produce spices the Portuguese had 
not occupied them and they now made no effectual 
resistance to the Spanish conquest of the islands. 23 
The union of Portugal to the crown of Spain in 1580 
subsequently removed every obstacle, and when the 
Portuguese crown resumed its independence in 1640 
the Portuguese had been driven from the Spice 
Islands by the Dutch. 

This is not the place to narrate in detail the history 
of the great expedition of Legaspi. It established the 
power of Spain in the Philippines and laid the 
foundations of their permanent organization. In a 
sense it was an American enterprise. The ships were 
built in America and for the most part equipped here. 
It was commanded and guided by men who lived in 
the New World. The work of Legaspi during the 
next seven years entitles him to a place among the 
greatest of colonial pioneers. In fact he has no rival. 
Starting with four ships and four hundred men, 
accompanied by five Augustinian monks, reinforced 

22 Ibid., pp. 109-m. 

23 In September, 1568, a Portuguese squadron despatched by 
the Governor of the Moluccas appeared off Cebu to drive the 
Spaniards out of the Visayan Islands. The commander satisfied 
himself with diplomatic protests. Montero y Vidal: Hist. Gen. 
de Filipinas, i, p. 34. 




Santo Nino de Cebu 

(Image of the child Jesus found in Cebu by Legazpi's 

soldiers in 1565) 

[From plate in possession of the Colegio de Filipinas, 

Falladolid} 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 33 

in 1567 by two hundred soldiers, and from time to 
time by similar small contingents of troops and 
monks, by a combination of tact, resourcefulness, and 
courage he won over the natives, repelled the Portu- 
guese and laid such foundations that the changes of 
the next thirty years constitute one of the most sur- 
prising revolutions in the annals of colonization. A 
most brilliant exploit was that of Legaspi's grandson, 
Juan de Salcedo, a youth of twenty-two who with 
forty-five men explored northern Luzon, covering 
the present provinces of Zambales, Pangasinan, La 
Union, Ilocos, and the coast of Cagayan, and secured 
submission of the people to Spanish rule. 24 Well 
might his associates hold him " unlucky because 
fortune had placed him where oblivion must needs 
bury the most valiant deeds that a knight ever 
wrought." 25 Nor less deserving of distinction than 
Legaspi and his heroic grandson was Friar Andres de 
Urdaneta the veteran navigator whose natural abili- 
ties and extensive knowledge of the eastern seas stood 
his commander in good stead at every point and most 
effectively contributed to the success of the expedi- 
tion. Nor should the work of the Friars be ignored. 
Inspired by apostolic zeal, reinforced by the glowing 
enthusiasm of the Catholic Reaction, gifted and tire- 

24 Montero y Vidal, i, pp. 41-42. 

25 Juan de Grijalva. From W. E. Retana's extracts from his 
Cronica de la Orden de N. P. S. Augustin en las provincias de la 
Nueva Espana, etc. (1533-1592) in Retana's edition of Zufiiga's 
Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas, ii. p. 219 ff. Juan de Salcedo after 
being promoted to the high rank of Maestre de Campo (an in- 
dependent command) died suddenly in 1576 at the age of twenty- 
seven. Far from amassing wealth in his career he died poor. In 
his will he provided that after the payment of his debts the residue 
of his property should be given to certain Indians of his encomienda. 
Ibid., p. 615. 



34 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. I 

less, they labored in harmony with Legaspi, won 
converts, and checked the slowly-advancing tide of 
Mohammedanism. The ablest of the Brothers, 
Martin de Rada, was preaching in Visayan within 
five months. 

The work of conversion opened auspiciously in 
Cebu, where Legaspi began his work, with a niece of 
Tupas, an influential native, who was baptized with 
great solemnity. Next came the conversion of the 
Moor [Moslem] " who had served as interpreter and 
who had great influence throughout all that country." 
In 1568 the turning point came with the baptism of 
Tupas and of his son. This opened the door to 
general conversion, for the example of Tupas had 
great weight. 26 

It is a singular coincidence that within the span of 
one human life the Spaniard should have finished 
the secular labor of breaking the power of the 
Moslem in Spain and have checked his advance in the 
islands of the antipodes. The religion of the prophet 
had penetrated to Malacca in 1276, had reached 
the Moluccas in 1465, and thence was spread- 
ing steadily northward to Borneo and the Philip- 
pines. Iolo (Sulu) and Mindanao succumbed in the 
sixteenth century and when Legaspi began the con- 
quest of Luzon in 1571 he found many Moham- 
medans whose settlement or conversion had grown 
out of the trade relations with Borneo. As the old 
Augustinian chronicler Grijalva remarks, and his 
words are echoed by Morga and by the modern 
historian Montero y Vidal : 27 " So well rooted was 

26 This account of the conversion is based on Grijalva's con- 
temporary narrative; see Retana's Zuniga, ii, pp. 219-220. 

27 Montero y Vidal, i, p. 59. 











M fa 11 f 






oww 



■ ■II I I f .. . 



„•» 



Map of islands of Luzon and Hermosa, with part of 
China; by Hernando de los Rios Coronel 

[From MS. map (dated Manila, June 2J, 1597), in Archivo General 
de Indias, Sevilla] 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 35 

the cancer that had the arrival of the Spaniards been 
delayed all the people would have become Moors, as 
are all the islanders who have not come under the 
government of the Philippines." 28 

It is one of the unhappy legacies of the religious 
revolution of the sixteenth century that it has fixed a 
great gulf between the Teutonic and the Latin mind, 
which proves impassable for the average intellect. 
The deadly rivalries of Catholic and Protestant, of 
Englishman and Spaniard, have left indelible traces 
upon their descendants which intensify race preju- 
dice and misunderstanding. The Englishman or 
American looks with a contempt upon the economic 
blindness or incapacity of the Spaniard that veils his 
eyes to their real aims and achievements. 

The tragedies and blunders of English coloniza- 
tion in America are often forgotten and only the 
tragedies and blunders of Spanish colonization are 
remembered. In the period which elapsed between 
the formulation of the Spanish and of the English 
colonial policies religious ideals were displaced by 
the commercial, and in the exaltation of the commer- 
cial ideal England took the lead. Colonies, from 
being primarily fields for the propagation of Chris- 
tianity and incidentally for the production of wealth, 
became the field primarily for industrial and com- 
mercial development and incidentally for Christian 
work. The change no doubt has contributed vastly 
to the wealth of the world and to progress, but it has 
been fatal to the native populations. The Spanish 
policy aimed to preserve and civilize the native races, 
not to establish a new home for Spaniards, and the 

28 Retana's Zuhiga, ii, p. 222 ; Morga, Hakluyt Society edition, 
pp. 307-308 ; Montero y Vidal, i, p. 60. 



36 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. 1 

colonial legislation provided elaborate safeguards for 
the protection of the Indians. Many of these were a 
mere dead letter but the preservation and civilization 
of the native stock in Mexico, Central and South 
America, and above all in the Philippines stand out 
in marked contrast, after all allowances and qualifi- 
cations have been made, with the fate, past and 
prospective, of the aborigines in North America, the 
Sandwich Islands, New Zealand, and Australia, and 
clearly differentiate in their respective tendencies and 
results the Spanish and English systems. The con- 
trast between the effects of the Spanish conquest in 
the West Indies, Mexico, and the Philippines reflects 
the development of the humane policy of the govern- 
ment. The ravages of the first conquistadores, it 
should be remembered, took place before the crown 
had time to develop a colonial policy. 

It is customary, too, for Protestant writers to speak 
with contempt of Catholic missions, but it must not 
be forgotten that France and England were con- 
verted to Christianity by similar methods. The 
Protestant ridicules the wholesale baptisms and con- 
versions and a Christianity not even skin-deep, but 
that was the way in which Christianity was once pro- 
pagated in what are the ruling Christian nations of 
today. The Catholic, on the other hand, might ask for 
some evidence that the early Germans, or the Anglo- 
Saxons would ever have been converted to Christian- 
ity by the methods employed by Protestants. 

The wholesale baptisms have their real significance 
in the frame of mind receptive for the patient 
Christian nurture that follows. Christianity has 
made its real conquests and is kept alive by Christian 
training, and its progress is the improvement which 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 37 

one generation makes upon another in the observance 
of its precepts. One who has read the old Penitential 
books and observed the evidences they afford of the 
vitality of heathen practices and rites among the 
people in England in the early Middle Ages will not 
be too harsh in characterizing the still imperfect 
fruits of the Catholic missions of the last three 
centuries. 

In the light, then, of impartial history raised above 
race prejudice and religious prepossessions, after a 
comparison with the early years of the Spanish con- 
quest in America or with the first generation or two of 
the English settlements, the conversion and civiliza- 
tion of the Philippines in the forty years following 
Legaspi's arrival must be pronounced an achievement 
without a parallel in history. An examination of 
what was accomplished at the very ends of the earth 
with a few soldiers and a small band of missionaries 
will it is believed reveal the reasons for this verdict. 
We are fortunate in possessing for this purpose, 
among other materials, a truly classic survey of the 
condition of the islands at the opening of the seven- 
teenth century written by a man of scholarly training 
and philosophic mind, Dr. Antonio de Morga, who 
lived in the islands eight years in the government 
service. 

The Spaniards found in the population of the 

29 He was lieutenant to the Governor and the first justice to be 
appointed to the supreme court (Audiencia) on its reorganization. 
His Sucesos de la islas Philipinas — Mexici ad Indos, anno i6og, 
is a work of great rarity. It was reprinted in Paris in 1890 with 
annotations by the Filipino author and patriot, Dr. Jose Rizal and 
with an Introduction by Blumentritt. Rizal tries to show that the 
Filipinos have retrograded in civilization under Spanish rule; cf. 
Retana's comments in his Zuniga, ii, p. 277. The references to 
Morga to follow are to the Hakluyt Society edition. 



38 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. 1 

islands two sharply contrasted types which still sur- 
vive — the Malay and the Negrito. After the intro- 
duction of Christianity the natives were commonly 
classified according to their religion as Indians 
(Christian natives), Moors 30 (Mohammedan na- 
tives), and Heathen (Gentiles) or Infidels. The 
religious beliefs of the Malays were not held with any 
great tenacity and easily yielded to the efforts of the 
missionaries. The native taste for the spectacular 
was impressed and gratified by the picturesque and 
imposing ceremonials of the church. 

Their political and social organization was deficient 
in cohesion. There were no well established native 
states but rather a congeries of small groups some- 
thing like clans. The headship of these groups or 
barangays was hereditary and the authority of the 
chief of the barangay was despotic. 31 This social 
disintegration immensely facilitated the conquest; 
and by tact and conciliation, effectively supported by 
arms, but with very little actual bloodshed, Spanish 
sovereignty was superimposed upon these relatively 
detached groups, whose essential features were pre- 
served as a part of the colonial administrative 
machinery. This in turn was a natural adaptation of 
that developed in New Spain. Building upon the 
available institutions of the barangay as a unit the 
Spaniards aimed to familiarize and accustom the 
Indians to settled village life and to moderate labor. 
Only under these conditions could religious training 
and systematic religious oversight be provided. 
These villages were commonly called pueblos or 

30 A natural transference of the familiar name in Spain for 
Mohammedans. 

31 Morga, pp. 296-297-. 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 39 

reducciones, and Indians who ran away to escape 
the restraints of civilized life were said to " take to 
the hills " (remontar). 

As a sign of their allegiance and to meet the ex- 
penses of government every Indian family was 
assessed a tribute of eight reals, about one dollar, and 
for the purpose of assessment the people were set off 
in special groups something like feudal holdings 
(encomiendas). The tribute from some of the en- 
comiendas went to the king. Others had been granted 
to the Spanish army officers or to the officials. 32 The 
" Report of the Encomiendas in the Islands in 1591 " 
just twenty years after the conquest of Luzon reveals 
a wonderful progress in the work of civilization. In 
the city of Manila there was a cathedral and the 
bishop's palace, monasteries for the Austin, Domi- 
nican, and Franciscan Friars, and a house for the 
Jesuits. The king maintained a hospital for Span- 
iards; there was also a hospital for Indians in the 
charge of two Franciscan lay brothers. The garrison 
was composed of two hundred soldiers. The Chinese 
quarter or Parian contained some two hundred shops 
and a population of about two thousand. In the 
suburb of Tondo there was a convent of Franciscans 
and another of Dominicans who provided Christian 
teaching for some forty converted Sangleyes (Chinese 
merchants) . In Manila and the adjacent region nine 
thousand four hundred and ten tributes were col- 
lected, indicating a total of some thirty thousand six 
hundred and forty souls under the religious instruc- 
tion of thirteen missionaries (ministros de doctrina), 
besides the friars in the monasteries. In the old prov- 

32 Morga, p. 323. 



40 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

ince of La Pampanga the estimated population was 
74,700 with twenty-eight missionaries ; in Pangasinan 
2,400 souls with eight missionaries; in Ilocos 78,520 
with twenty missionaries ; in Cagayan and the Babu- 
yan islands 96,000 souls but no missionaries; in La 
Laguna 48,400 souls with twenty-seven missionaries ; 
in Vicol and Camarines with the island of Canndu- 
anes 86,640 souls with fifteen missionaries, etc., mak- 
ing a total for the islands of 166,903 tributes or 667,- 
612 souls under one hundred and forty missionaries, 
of which seventy-nine were Augustinians, nine Dom- 
inicans, forty-two Franciscans. The King's enco- 
miendas numbered thirty-one and the private ones 
two hundred and thirty-six. 33 

Friar Martin Ignacio in his Itinerario, the earliest 
printed description of the islands (1585), says: " Ac- 
cording unto the common opinion at this day there 
is converted and baptised more than foure hundred 
thousand soules." 3 * 

This system of encomiendas had been productive 
of much hardship and oppression in Spanish Amer- 
ica, nor was it altogether divested of these evils in 
the Philippines. The payment of tributes, too, was 
irksome to the natives and in the earlier days the 
Indians were frequently drafted for forced labor, but 
during this transition period, and later, the clergy 
were the constant advocates of humane treatment and 
stood between the natives and the military authori- 
ties. This solicitude of the missionaries for their 

33 Relation de las Encomiendas existentes en Filipinas el dia 31 
de Mayo de 1591, in Retana: Archivo del Bibliofilo Filipino, iv, 
pp. 39-H2. 

34 Mendoza, The History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom 
of China. Hakluyt Society edition, ii, p. 263. 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 41 

spiritual children and the wrongs from which they 
sought to protect them are clearly displayed in the 
Relacion de las Cosas de las Filipinas of Domin- 
go de Salazar, the first bishop, who has been styled 
the " Las Casas of the Philippines." 35 

That it was the spirit of kindness, Christian love, 
and brotherly helpfulness of the missionaries that 
effected the real conquest of the islands is abundantly 
testified by qualified observers of various national- 
ities and periods, 36 but the most convincing demon- 
stration is the ridiculously small military force that 
was required to support the prestige of the Catholic 
king. The standing army organized in 1590 for the 
defense of the country numbered four hundred 
men! 37 No wonder an old viceroy of New Spain 

35 Printed in Retana's Archivo, iii, pp. 3-45. 

36 " Of little avail would have been the valor and constancy 
with which Legaspi and his worthy companions overcame the 
natives of the islands, if the apostolic zeal of the missionaries had 
not seconded their exertions, and aided to consolidate the enterprise. 
The latter were the real conquerors; they who without any other 
arms than their virtues, gained over the good will of the islanders, 
caused the Spanish name to be beloved, and gave the king, as it 
were by a miracle, two millions more of submissive and Christian 
subjects." Tomas de Comyn, State of the Philippine Islands, etc., 
translated by William Walton, London, 1821, p. 209. Comyn 
was the general manager of the Royal Philippine Company for 
eight years in Manila and is described by his latest editor, Senor 
del Pan, editor of the Revista de Filipinas, as a man of " extensive 
knowledge especially in the social sciences." Retana characterizes 
his book as " un libro de merito extraordinario," Zuniga, ii, pp. 
175-76. Mallat says: " C'est par la seule influence de la religion 
que Ton a conquis les Philippines, et cette influence pourra seule les 
conserver." Les Philippines, histoire, geographie, moeurs, agri- 
culture, Industrie et commerce des Colonies espagnoles dans 
loceanie. Par J. Mallat, Paris, 1846, i, p. 40. I may say that 
this work seems to me the best of all the modern works on the 
Philippines. The author was a man of scientific training who 
went to the islands to study them after a preparatory residence in 
Spain for two years. 

37 Morga, p. 325. 



42 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

was wont to say: "En cada fraile tenia el rey en 
Filipinas un capitan general y un ejercito entero " — 
" In each friar in the Philippines the King had a 
captain general and a whole army." 38 The efforts of 
the missionaries were by no means restricted to relig- 
ious teaching, but were also directed to promote the 
social and economic advancement of the islands. 
They cultivated the innate taste for music of the 
natives and taught the children Spanish. 39 They in- 
troduced improvements in rice culture, brought 
Indian corn and cacao from America and developed 
the cultivation of indigo and coffee, and sugar cane. 
Tobacco alone of the economic plants brought to the 
islands by the Spaniards owes its introduction to gov- 
ernment agency. 40 

The young capital of the island kingdom of New 
Castile, as it was denominated by Philip II, in 1603 
when it was described by Morga invites some com- 
parison with Boston, New York, or Philadelphia in 
the seventeenth century. The city was surrounded by 
a wall of hewn stone some three miles in circuit. 
There were two forts and a bastion, each with a gar- 
rison of a few soldiers. The government residence 
and office buildings were of hewn stone and spacious 
and airy. The municipal buildings, the cathedral, 
and the monasteries of the three orders were of the 
same material. The Jesuits, besides providing special 
courses of study for members of their order, con- 
ducted a college for the education of Spanish youth. 
The establishment of this college had been ordered 

38 Mallat, i, p. 389. 

39 Morga, p. 320. 

40 Mallat, i, pp. 382-385. 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 43 

by Philip II in 1585 but it was 1601 before it was 
actually opened. 41 Earlier than this in 1593 there 
had been established a convent school for girls, 42 the 
college of Saint Potenciana. In provisions for the 
sick and helpless, Manila at the opening of the seven- 
teenth century was far in advance of any city in the 
English colonies for more than a century and a half 
to come. 43 There was first the royal hospital for 
Spaniards with its medical attendants and nurses; 
the Franciscan hospital for the Indians administered 
by three priests and by four lay brothers who were 
physicians and apothecaries and whose skill had 
wrought surprising cures in medicine and surgery; 
the House of Mercy, which took in sick slaves, gave 
lodgings to poor women, portioned orphan girls, and 
relieved other distresses; and lastly, the hospital for 
Sangleyes or Chinese shopkeepers in the Chinese 
quarter. 44 Within the walls the houses, mainly of 
stone and inhabited by Spaniards, numbered about 
six hundred. The substantial buildings, the gaily- 
dressed people, the abundance of provisions and other 
necessaries of human life made Manila, as Morga 
says, " one of the towns most praised by the strangers 

41 Morga, p. 312. Mallat, ii, p. 240. 

42 Morga, p. 313. Mallat, ii, p. 244. 

43 The first regular hospital in the thirteen colonies was the 
Pennsylvania Hospital, incorporated in 1751. Patients were first 
admitted in 1752. Cornell, History of Pennsylvania, pp. 409-411. 
There are references to a hospital in New Amsterdam in 1658, 
but the New York hospital was the first institution of the kind 
of any importance. It was founded in 1771, but patients were not 
admitted till 1791. Memorial History of New York, iv, p. 407. 
There was no hospital for the treatment of general diseases in 
Boston until the nineteenth century. The Massachusetts General 
Hospital was chartered in 181 1. Memorial History of Boston, 
iv, p. 548. 

44 Morga, p. 350. 



44 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

who flock to it of any in the world." 45 There were 
three other cities in the islands, Segovia and Cazeres 
in Luzon, and the city of the "most holy name of 
Jesus " in Cebu, the oldest Spanish settlement in the 
archipelago. In the first and third the Spanish in- 
habitants numbered about two hundred and in 
Cazeres about one hundred. In Santisimo nombre 
de Jesus there was a Jesuit college. 

Although the Indians possessed an alphabet before 
the arrival of the Spaniards and the knowledge of 
reading and writing was fairly general they had no 
written literature of any kind. 46 A Jesuit priest who 
had lived in the islands eighteen years, writing not far 
from 1640, tells us that by that time the Tagals had 
learned to write their language from left to right in- 
stead of perpendicularly as was their former custom, 
but they used writing merely for correspondence. 
The only books thus far in the Indian languages were 
those written by the missionaries on religion. 47 

45 Morga, p. 314. 

46 Friar Juan Francisco de San Antonio who went to the Philip- 
pines in 1724, says that " up to the present time there has not been 
found a scrap of writing relating to religion, ceremonial, or the 
ancient political institutions." Chronicas de la Apostolica Pro- 
vincia de San Gregorio, etc. (Sampoloc, near Manila, 1735), i, pp. 
149-150 (cited from Retana's Zuniga, ii, p. 294. 

47 They used palm leaves for paper and an iron stylus for a pen. 
" L'escriture ne leur sert que pour s'escrire les uns aux autres, car 
ils n'ont point d'histoires ny de Livres d'aucune Science; nos 
Religieux ont imprime des livres en la langue des Isles des choses 
de nostre Religion." Relation des Isles Philippines, Faite par un 
Religieux qui y a demeure 18 ans, in Thevenot's Voyages Curieux. 
Paris 1663, ii (p. 5, of the " Relation"). This narrative is one 
of the earliest to contain a reproduction of the old Tagal alphabet. 
Retana ascribes it to a Jesuit and dates it about 1640: p. 13 of the 
catalogue of his library appended to Archivo del Bibliofilo Filipino, 
i. The earliest printed data on the Tagal language according to 
Retana are those given in Chirino's Relacion de las Islas Filipinos, 
Rome, 1604. 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 45 

In regard to the religious life of the converted In- 
dians the Friars and Morga speak on the whole with 
no little satisfaction. Friar Martin Ignacio in 1584 
writes : " Such as are baptised, doo receive the f ayth 
with great firmenesse, and are good Christians, and 
would be better, if that they were holpen with good 
ensamples." 48 Naturally the Spanish soldiers left 
something to be desired as examples of Christianity 
and Friar Martin relates the story of the return from 
the dead of a principal native — " a strange case, the 
which royally did passe of a trueth in one of these 
ilandes," — who told his former countrymen of the 
" benefites and delights " of heaven, which " was the 
occasion that some of them forthwith received the 
baptisme, and that others did delay it, saying, that be- 
cause there were Spaniard souldiers in glory, they 
would not go thither, because they would not be in 
their company." 49 

Morga writing in 1603 says: " In strictest truth 
the affairs of the faith have taken a good footing, as 
the people have a good disposition and genius, and 
they have seen the errors of their paganism and the 
truths of the Christian religion ; they have got good 
churches and monasteries of wood, well constructed, 
with shrines and brilliant ornaments, and all the 
things required for the service, crosses, candlesticks, 
chalices of gold and silver, many brotherhoods and 
religious acts, assiduity in the sacraments and being 
present at divine service, and care in maintaining and 
supplying their monks, with great obedience and re- 
spect; they also give for the prayers and burials of 

48 Mendoza's Historie of the Kingdome of China, volume ii, 
p. 263. 

40 Ibid., p. 264. 



46 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. 1 

their dead, and perform this with all punctuality and 
liberality." 50 A generation later the report of the 
Religious is not quite so sanguine : " They receive 
our religion easily and their lack of intellectual pen- 
etration saves them from sounding the difficulties of 
its mysteries. They are too careless of fulfilling the 
duties of the Christianity which they profess and 
must needs be constrained by fear of chastisement and 
be ruled like school children. Drunkenness and 
usury are the two vices to which they are most given 
and these have not been entirely eradicated by the 
efforts of our monks." 51 That these efforts were sub- 
sequently crowned with a large measure of success is 
shown by the almost universal testimony to the tem- 
perate habits of the Filipinos. 

This first period of Philippine history has been 
called its Golden Age. Certainly no succeeding gen- 
eration saw such changes and advancement. It was 
the age of Spain's greatest power and the slow decline 
and subsequent decrepitude that soon afflicted the 
parent state could not fail to react upon the colony. 
This decline was in no small degree the consequence 
of the tremendous strain to which the country was 
subjected in the effort to retain and solidify its power 
in Europe while meeting the burden of new estab- 
lishments in America and the Philippines. That in 
the very years when Spaniards were accomplishing 
the unique work of redeeming an oriental people 
from barbarism and heathenism to Christianity and 
civilized life, the whole might of the mother-country 
should have been massed in a tremendous conflict in 

50 Morga, p. 319. 

51 Relation d'un Religieux, Thevenot, volume ii, (p. 7 of the 
Relation). 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 47 

Europe which brought ruin and desolation to the 
most prosperous provinces under her dominion, and 
sapped her own powers of growth, is one of the 
strangest coincidences in history. 

Bending every energy for years to stay the tide of 
change and progress, suppressing freedom of thought 
with relentless vigor, and quarantining herself and 
her dependencies against new ideas, conservatism 
grew to be her settled habit and the organs of gov- 
ernment became ossified. Policies of commercial re- 
striction which were justifiable or at least rationally 
explicable in the sixteenth century lasted on, proof 
against innovation or improvement, until the eight- 
eenth century and later. Consequently from the 
middle of the seventeenth century at the period of the 
rapid rise of colonial powers of France, Holland, and 
England, the Spanish colonies find themselves under 
a commercial regime which increasingly hampers 
their prosperity and effectually blocks their advance- 
ment. 

The contrast between the Spanish possessions and 
those of the other maritime powers became more 
marked as time went on. The insuperable conserva- 
tism of the home government gave little opportunity 
for the development of a class of energetic and pro- 
gressive colonial officials, and financial corruption 
honeycombed the whole colonial civil service. 

Such conditions : the absence of the spirit of pro- 
gress, hostility to new ideas, failure to develop re- 
sources, and the prevalence of bribery and corruption 
in the civil service, insure abundant and emphatic 
condemnation at the present day for the Spanish 
colonial system. But in any survey of this system we 
must not lose sight of the terrible costs of progress in 



48 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. 1 

the tropical colonies of Holland, France, and Eng- 
land; nor fail to compare the pueblos of the Philip- 
pines in the eighteenth century with the plantations 
of San Domingo, or Jamaica, or Java, or with those 
of Cuba in the early nineteenth century when the 
spirit of progress invaded the island. 

To facilitate the understanding of the historical 
materials which will be collected in this series and to 
lay the foundation for a just and appreciative com- 
parison of the institutions of the Philippines with 
those of other European dependencies in the tropics, 
it will be my aim now to bring into relief the distinc- 
tive features of the work wrought in the islands which 
raised a congeries of Malay tribes to Christian civil- 
ization, and secured for them as happy and peaceful 
an existence on as high a plane as has yet been at- 
tained by any people of color anywhere in the world, 
or by any orientals for any such length of time. 

Such a survey of Philippine life may well begin 
with a brief account of the government of the islands. 
This will be followed by a description of the com- 
mercial system and of the state of the arts and of 
education, religion, and some features of social life 
during the eighteenth century and in the first years of 
the nineteenth before the entrance of the various and 
distracting currents of modern life and thought. In 
some cases significant details will be taken from the 
works of competent witnesses whose observations 
were made somewhat earlier or later. This pro- 
cedure is unobjectionable in describing a social con- 
dition on the whole so stationary as was that of the 
Philippines before the last half century. 

From the beginning the Spanish establishments in 
the Philippines were a mission and not in the proper 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 49 

sense of the term a colony. They were founded and 
administered in the interests of religion rather than of 
commerce or industry. They were an advanced out- 
post of Christianity whence the missionary forces 
could be deployed through the great empires of 
China and Japan, and hardly had the natives of the 
islands begun to yield to the labors of the friars when 
some of the latter pressed on adventurously into 
China and found martyrs' deaths in Japan. In ex- 
amining the political administration of the Philip- 
pines, then, we must be prepared to find it a sort of 
outer garment under which the living body is ecclesi- 
astical. Against this subjection to the influence and 
interests of the Church energetic governors rebelled, 
and the history of the Spanish domination is check- 
ered with struggles between the civil and religious 
powers which reproduce on a small scale the medi- 
aeval contests of Popes and Emperors. 

Colonial governments are of necessity adaptations 
of familiar domestic institutions to new functions. 
The government of Spain in the sixteenth century was 
not that of a modern centralized monarchy but 
rather of a group of kingdoms only partially welded 
together by the possession of the same sovereign, the 
same language, and the same religion. The King of 
Spain was also the ruler of other kingdoms outside of 
the peninsula. Consequently when the New World 
was given a political organization it was subdivided 
for convenience into kingdoms and captaincies gen- 
eral in each of which the administrative machinery 
was an adaptation of the administrative machinery of 
Spain. In accordance with this procedure the Phil- 
ippine islands were constituted a kingdom and placed 
under the charge of a governor and captain general, 



50 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

whose powers were truly royal and limited only by 
the check imposed by the Supreme Court (the Audi- 
encia) and by the ordeal of the residencia at the ex- 
piration of his term of office. Among his extensive 
prerogatives was his appointing power which em- 
braced all branches of the civil service in the islands. 
He also was ex officio the President of the Audien- 
cia. 52 His salary was $8,000 53 a year, but his income 
might be largely augmented by gifts or bribes. 54 The 
limitations upon the power of the Governor imposed 
by the Audiencia, in the opinion of the French 
astronomer Le Gentil, were the only safeguard 
against an arbitrary despotism, yet Ziiniga, a genera- 
tion later pronounced its efforts in this direction gen- 
erally ineffectual. 55 The residencia to which 

52 On the powers of the Governor, see Morga, pp. 344-345. 

53 Throughout this Introduction the Spanish " peso " is rendered 
by " dollar." The reader will bear in mind the varying purchas- 
ing power of the dollar. To arrive at an approximate equivalent 
ten may be used as a multiplier for the sixteenth and early seven- 
teenth centuries, and five for the middle of the eighteenth century. 

54 It may be remembered that the official conscience in the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was not so sensitive in regard 
to " tips " as it is expected to be today. Le Gentil writes : " Les 
Gouverneurs de Manille corrompent journellement leurs graces, 
et les Manillois ne les abordent guere pour leur en demander, sans 
se precautioner auparavant du rameau d'or; seul et unique moyen 
de se les rendre favorables. Un soir etant alle voir le Gouverneur, 
in 1767, a peine m'eut-il demande des nouvelles de ma sente qu'il 
alia me chercher une bouteille de verre de chopine, mesure de 
Paris, (half-pint) pleine de paillettes d'or, il me la fit voir en me 
disant que c'etoit un present dont on l'avoit regale ce jour-la meme; 
Oij me dit-il, me regalaron de este" Voyage dans Les Mers de 
Ulnde, Paris, 1781, ii, pp. 152-153. Le Gentil was in the Philip- 
pines about eighteen months in 1766-67 on a scientific mission. 
His account of conditions there is one of the most thorough and 
valuable that we have for the eighteenth century. As a layman 
and man of science his views are a useful offset against those of the 
clerical historians. 

^Voyage, ii, p. 153. "The Royal Audience was established 



H93-I529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 5 1 

reference has been made was an institution peculiar 
in modern times to the Spanish colonial system. It 
was designed to provide a method by which officials 
could be held to strict accountability for all acts during 
their term of office. Today reliance is placed upon 
the force of public opinion inspired and formulated 
by the press and, in self-governing communities, upon 
the holding of frequent elections. The strength of 
modern party cohesion both infuses vigor into these 
agencies and neutralizes their effectiveness as the 
case may be. But in the days of the formation of the 
Spanish Empire beyond the sea there were neither 
free elections, nor public press, and the criticism of 
the government was sedition. To allow a contest in 
the courts involving the governor's powers during his 
term of office would be subversive of his authority. 
He was then to be kept within bounds by realizing 
that a day of judgment was impending, when every- 
one, even the poorest Indian, might in perfect security 
bring forward his accusation. 56 In the Philippines 
the residencia for a governor lasted six months and 
was conducted by his successor and all the charges 
made were forwarded to Spain. 57 The Italian trav- 

to restrain the despotism of the Governors, which it has never 
prevented; for the gentlemen of the gown are always weak-kneed 
and the Governor can send them under guard to Spain, pack them 
off to the provinces to take a census of the Indians or imprison 
them, which has been done several times without any serious con- 
sequences." Zuniga: Estadismo de las Islas Filipinos mis Viages 
por este Pais, ed. Retana, i, p. 244. 

56 " Cuando se pusieren edictos, publicaren, y pregonaren las 
residencias, sea de forma que vengan a noticia de los Indios, para 
que puedan pedir justicia de sus agravios con entera libertad." 
Law of 1556, lib. v, tit. xv, ley xxviii of the Recopilacion de Leyes 
de los Reinos de las Indias. 

57 Recopilacion, lib. v, tit. xv, ley vii. 



52 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

eler Gemelli Careri who visited Manila in 1696 
characterizes the governor's residencia as a " dread- 
ful Trial," the strain of which would sometimes 
" break their hearts." 58 

On the other hand, an acute observer of Spanish- 
American institutions of the olden time intimates that 
the severities of the residencia could be mitigated and 
no doubt such was the case in the Philippines. 59 By 
the end of the eighteenth century the residencia seems 
to have lost its efficacy. 60 The governorship was 
certainly a difficult post to fill and the remoteness 
from Europe, the isolation, and the vexations of the 
residencia made it no easy task to get good men for 
the place. An official of thirty years experience, lay 
and ecclesiastical, assures us in the early seventeenth 
century that he had known of only one governor 
really fitted for the position, Gomez Perez Dasmari- 
fias. He had done more for the happiness of the 
natives in three years than all his predecessors or suc- 
cessors. Some governors had been without previous 
political experience while others were deficient in 

58 Churchill's Voyages, iv, pp. 427-428. 

59 " I request the reader not to infer from my opinion of the 
tribunals of residence, my confidence in their efficacy. My homage 
is immediately and solely addressed to the wisdom of the law. I 
resign all criticism on its operation, to those who know the se- 
ductive influence of Plutus over the feeble and pliant Themis." 
De Pons: Voyage to the Eastern Part of Terra Firma or the 
Spanish Main in South America during the years i8oi } 1802, 
1803 j and 1804. New York, 1806, ii, p. 25. 

60 " Une loi tres-sage, mais malheureusement sans effet, qui 
devrait moderer cette autorite excessive, est celle qui permet a 
chaque citoyen de poursuivre le gouverneur veteran devant son 
successeur; mais celui-ci est interesse a excuser tout ce qu'on 
reproche a son predecesseur ; et le citoyen assez temeraire pour se 
plaindre, est expose a de nouvelles et a de plus fortes vexations." 
Voyage de La Perouse autour du Monde. Paris, 1797, ii, p. 350. 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 53 

the qualities required in a successful colonial ruler. 61 
The supreme court or Audiencia was composed of 
four judges (oidores, auditors) an attorney-general 
(fiscal) a constable, etc. The governor who acted as 
president had no vote. 62 Besides the functions of this 
body as the highest court of appeal for criminal and 
civil cases it served as has been said as a check upon 
the governor. Down to 171 5 the Audiencia took 
charge of the civil administration in the interim be- 
tween the death of a governor and the arrival of 
his successor, and the senior auditor assumed the mili- 
tary command. 63 Attached to the court were advo- 
cates for the accused, a defender of the Indians, and 
other minor officials. In affairs of public importance 
the Audiencia was to be consulted by the governor 
for the opinions of the auditors. 64 

For the purposes of local administration the is- 
lands were subdivided into or constituted Provinces 
under alcaldes mayores who exercised both execu- 

61 His comments on the kind of officials needed are not without 
interest today: "A governor must understand war but he must 
not be over confident of his abilities. Let him give ear to the 
advice of those who know the country where things are managed 
very differently from what they are in Europe. Those who have 
tried to carry on war in the islands as it is carried on in Flanders 
and elsewhere in Europe have fallen into irreparable mistakes. 
The main thing, however, is to aim at the welfare of the people, 
to treat them kindly, to be friendly toward foreigners, to take 
pains to have the ships for New Spain sail promptly and in good 
order, to promote trade with neighboring people and to encourage 
ship-building. In a word, to live with the Indians rather like a 
father than like a governor." Relation et Memorial de letat des 
Isles Philippines, et des Isles Moluques by Ferdinand de los Rios 
Coronel, Prestre et Procureur General des Isles Philippines, etc. 
Thevenot, ii (p. 23 of the Relation). 

62 Morga, p. 345. Recopilacion, lib. ii, tit. xv, ley xi. 

63 Ibid., ley lviii. Le Gentil, ii, pp. 159, 161. 

64 Recopilacion, lib. ii, tit. xv, ley xi. 



54 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

tive and judicial functions, and superintended the 
collection of tribute. 65 The alcaldes may ores were 
allowed to engage in trade on their own account 
which resulted too frequently in enlisting their 
interest chiefly in money making and in fleecing the 
Indians. 66 

The provincial court consisted of the alcalde 
mayor, an assessor who was a lawyer, and a notary. 
The favoritism and corruption that honeycombed the 
civil service of Spain in the colonies in the days of her 
decline often placed utterly unfit persons in these po- 
sitions of responsibility. A most competent observer, 
Tomas de Comyn, many years the factor of the Phil- 
ippine Commercial Company, has depicted in dark 
colors, and perhaps somewhat overdrawn the evils 
of the system. 67 

65 Mallat, i, pp. 349-50. For a historical summary of the varia- 
tions in the names of the provinces see Retana's Zufiiga's Estadismo, 
ii, p. 376 ff. 

68 They received the tribute in kind in fixed amounts and made 
money out of the fluctuations of the market prices. At times of 
scarcity and consequent high prices this procedure doubled or 
trebled the burden of the tribute. See State of the Philippine 
Islands, by Tomas de Comyn, translated by William Walton, p. 
197. Mallat says: " Rien n'est plus funeste au pays que la 
permission qui est accordee aux alcaldes de faire le commerce pour 
leur compte." i, p. 351. See also Retana's note, Zufiiga, Estadismo, 
ii, p. 530. This right to trade was abolished in 1844. 

67 " It is a fact common enough to see a hair-dresser or a lackey 
converted into a governor; a sailor or a deserter, transformed into 
a district magistrate, collector, or military commander of a pop- 
ulous province, without other counsellor than his own crude 
understanding, or any other guide than his passions. Such a meta- 
morphosis would excite laughter in a comedy or farce ; but, realized 
in the theatre of human life, it must give rise to sensations of a 
very different nature. Who is there that does not feel horror- 
struck, and tremble for the innocent, when he sees a being of this 
kind transferred from the yard-arm to the seat of justice, deciding 
in the first instance on the honor, lives, and property of a hundred 



1 493-1 529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 55 

The subdivision of the provinces was into pueblos 
each under its petty governor or gobernadorcillo. 
The gobernadorcillo was an Indian and was elected 
annually. In Morga's time the right of suffrage 
seems to have been enjoyed by all married Indians, 68 
but in the last century it was restricted to thirteen 
electors. 69 The gobernadorcillo was commonly called 

thousand persons, and haughtily exacting the homage and incense 
of the spiritual ministers of the towns under his jurisdiction, as 
well as of the parish curates, respectable for their acquirements and 
benevolence, and who in their own native places, would possibly 
have rejected as a servant the very man whom in the Philippines 
they are compelled to court, and obey as a sovereign." State of the 
Philippine Islands, London, 1821, p. 194. 

68 Morga, p. 323. 

69 Jagor describes an election which he saw in the town of 
Lauane, of four thousand five hundred inhabitants, in the little 
island of the same name which lies just off the north shore of 
Samar. As it is the only description of such a local election that 
I recall I quote it in full. " It took place in the town house. At 
the table sits the Governor or his proxy, on his right the pastor 
and on his left the secretary who is the interpreter. All the 
Cabezas de Barangay, the Gobernadorcillo and those who have 
formerly been such have taken their places on the benches. In the 
first place six of the Cabezas, and six of the ex-Gobernadorcillos 
respectively are chosen by lot to serve as electors. The Goberna- 
dorcillo in office makes the thirteenth. The rest now leave the 
room. After the chairman has read the rules and exhorted the 
electors to fulfil their duty conscientiously, they go one by one to 
the table and write three names on a ballot. Whoever receives 
the largest number of votes is forthwith nominated for Goberna- 
dorcillo for the ensuing year, if the pastor or the electors make no 
well-founded objections subject to the confirmation of the superior 
court in Manila, which is a matter of course since the influence of 
the pastor would prevent an unsuitable choice. The same process 
was followed in the election of the other local officials except that 
the new Gobernadorcillo was called in that he might make any 
objections to the selections. The whole transaction was very 
quiet and dignified." Reisen in den Philippinen, Berlin, 1873, pp. 
189-190. 

Sir John Bowring's account of this system of local administra- 
tion is the clearest of those I have found in English books. A 
Visit to the Philippine Islands, London, 1859, PP- 89-93. 



56 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

the " captain." Within the pueblos the people 
formed little groups of from forty to fifty tributes 
called barangays under the supervision of cabezas 
de barangay. These heads of barangay represent the 
survival of the earlier clan organization and were 
held responsible for the tributes of their groups. 
Originally the office of cabeza de barangay was no 
doubt hereditary, but it became generally elective. 70 
The electors of the gobernadorcillo were made up of 
those who were or had been cabezas de barangay 
and they after three years of service became eligible 
to the office of petty governor. 

In the few Spanish towns in the islands the local 
government was similar to that which prevailed in 
America, which in turn was derived from Spain. 
That of Manila may be taken as an example. The 
corporation, El Cabildo (chapter) consisted of two 
ordinary alcaldes, eight regidores, a registrar, and 
a constable. The alcaldes were justices, and were 
elected annually from the householders by the cor- 
poration. The regidores were aldermen and with 
the registrar and constable held office permanently 
as a proprietary right. These permanent positions in 
the cabildo could be bought and sold or inherited. 71 

Turning now to the ecclesiastical administration, 
we find there the real vital organs of the Philippine 
governmental system. To the modern eye the islands 
would have seemed, as they did to the French scientist 
Le Gentil, priest-ridden. Yet it was only through the 

70 The Gobernadorcillo in council with the other Cabezas pre- 
sented a name to the superior authority for appointment. Bowring, 
p. 90. 

71 Zufiiga, Estadismo de las Islas Filipinos, i, p. 245. Cf. Mal- 
lat, i, p. 358. 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 57 

Friars that Spain retained her hold at all. 72 A cor- 
rupt civil service and a futile and decrepit commer- 
cial system were through their efforts rendered 
relatively harmless, because circumscribed in their 
effects. The continuous fatherly interest of the 
clergy more than counterbalanced the burden of the 
tribute. 73 They supervised the tilling of the soil, as 
well as the religious life of the people; and it was 
through them that the works of education and charity 
were administered. 74 

The head of the ecclesiastical system was the Arch- 
bishop of Manila, who in a certain sense was the 
Patriarch of the Indies. 75 The other high ecclesias- 
tical digritaries were the three bishops of Cebu, of 
Segovia in Cagayan, and of Cazeres in Camarines; 
and the provincials of the four great orders of friars, 
the Dominicans, Augustinians, the Franciscans, the 
barefooted Augustinians, and the Jesuits. 76 In the 
earlier days the regular clergy (members of the 
orders) greatly outnumbered the seculars, and 
refused to acknowledge that they were subject to the 
visitation of bishop or archbishop. This contention 
gave rise, at times, to violent struggles. During the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the proportionate 
number of seculars increased. In 1750 the total 
number of parishes was 569, of which 142, embrac- 
ing 147,269 persons, were under secular priests. The 
numbers in charge of the orders were as follows : 

72 Comyn : State of the Philippine Islands, ch. vii. 

73 Mallat, i, pp. 40. 386. Jagor, pp. 95-97- 

74 Mallat, i, p. 380 ff. Comyn, p. 212 if. 

75 Mallat, i, p. 365. 
78 Morga, p. 333. 



58 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. 1 

Villages. Souls. 
Augustinians, . . . . 115 252,963 

Franciscans, ..... 63 141,193 

Jesuits, ...... 93 209,527 

Dominicans, 51 99,780 

Recollects, 105 53*384 

making a total of 569 parishes and 904,116 souls. 77 
These proportions, however, fail to give a correct 
idea of the enormous preponderance of the religious 
orders; for the secular priests were mostly Indians 
and could exercise nothing like the influence of the 
Friars upon their cures. 78 

In these hundreds of villages the friars bore sway 
with the mild despotism of the shepherd of the flock. 
Spanish officials entered these precincts only on 
occasion. Soldiers were not to be seen save to sup- 
press disorders. Spaniards were not allowed to live 
in these communities, and visitors were carefully 
watched. 79 As Spanish was little known in the 
provinces, the curate was the natural intermediary 
in all communications between the natives and the 
officials or outsiders. In some provinces there were 
no white persons besides the alcalde mayor and the 

77 Delgado : Historic de Filipinas, Biblioteca Historica Filipina, 
Manila, 1892, pp. 155-156. Delgado wrote in 175051. Some- 
what different figures are given by Le Gentil on the basis of the 
official records in 1735, ii, p. 182. His total is 705,903 persons. 

78 Le Gentil, i, p. 186. 

79 Recopilaciorij lib. vi, tit. iii, ley xxi. Morga, p. 330. 
"Avec toutes les recommandations possible, il arrive encore 

que le moine charge de la peuplade par ou vous voyagez, vous laisse 
rarement parler seul aux Indiens. Lorsque vous parlez en sa 
presence a quelque Indien qui entend un peu le Castillan, si ce 
Religieux trouve mauvais que vous conversiez trop long-temps avec 
ce Naturel, il lui fait entendre dans la langue du pays, de ne vous 
point repondre en Castillan, mais dans sa langue: l'lndien obeit." 
Le Gentil, ii, p. 185. 




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1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 59 

friars. Without soldiers the alcalde mayor must 
needs rely upon the influence of the friars to enable 
him to execute his duties as provincial governor. In 
contemplating their services for civilization and 
good order Tomas de Comyn rises to enthusiasm. 
" Let us visit," he writes, " the Philippine Islands, 
and with astonishment shall we there behold ex- 
tended ranges, studded with temples and spacious 
convents, the Divine worship celebrated with pomp 
and splendour; regularity in the streets, and even 
luxury in the houses and dress; schools of the first 
rudiments in all the towns, and the inhabitants well 
versed in the art of writing. We shall see there 
causeways raised, bridges of good architecture built, 
and, in short, all the measures of good government 
and police, in the greatest part of the country, carried 
into effect; yet the whole is due to the exertions, 
apostolic labours, and pure patriotism of the min- 
isters of religion. Let us travel over the provinces, 
and we shall see towns of 5, 10, and 20,000 Indians, 
peacefully governed by one weak old man who, with 
his doors open at all hours, sleeps quie^ and secure 
in his dwelling, without any other magic, or any 
other guards, than the love and respect with which 
he has known how to inspire his flock." 80 

If this seems too rosy a picture, it still must not be 
forgotten that at this time the ratio of whites to 
Indians in the islands was only about one to sixteen 
hundred, 81 that most of these lived in Manila, and 

80 State of the Philippine Islands, pp. 216-217. These responsi- 
bilities and the isolation from Europeans together with the climate 
frequently brought on insanity. Le Gentil, ii, p. 129. Mallat, i, 
p. 388. 

81 1 bid. , p. 214. 



60 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

that the entire military force was not more 7 than two 
thousand regular troops. 82 As has been intimated 
this condition lasted down until a comparatively re- 
cent period. As late as 1864 the total number of 
Spaniards amounted to but 4,050 of whom 3,280 were 
government officials, etc., 500 clergy, 200 landed pro- 
prietors, and 70 merchants; and in the provinces the 
same conditions prevailed that are described by 
Comyn. 83 In more than half of the twelve hundred 
villages in the islands " there was no other Spaniard, 
no other national authority, nor any other force to 
maintain public order save only the friars." 84 

Recurring for a moment to the higher ecclesias- 
tical organization, the judicial functions of the 
church were represented by the archbishop's court 
and the commissioner of the Inquisition. The 
Episcopal court, which was made up of the arch- 
bishop, the vicar-general, and a notary, tried cases 
coming under the canon law, such as those relating 
to matrimony and all cases involving the clergy. 
Idolatry on the part of the Indians or Chinese might 

82 In 1637 the military force maintained in the islands consisted 
of one thousand seven hundred and two Spaniards and one hun- 
dred and forty Indians. Memorial de D. Juan Grau y Monfalcon, 
Procurador General de las Islas Filipinas, Docs. Ineditos del 
Archivo de Indias, vi, p. 425. In 1787 the garrison at Manila 
consisted of one regiment of Mexicans comprising one thousand 
three hundred men, two artillery companies of eighty men each, 
three cavalry companies of fifty men each. La Perouse, ii, p. 368. 

83 Apuntes Interesantes sobre Las Islas Filipinas, etc., escritos 
por un Espanol de larga esperiencia en el pais y amante del pro- 
gresso, Madrid, 1869, p. 13. This very interesting and valuable 
work was written in the main by Vicente Barrantes, who was a 
member of the Governor's council and his secretary. On the 
authorship see Retana's Archivo ii, Biblioteca Gen., p. 25, which 
corrects his conjecture published in his Zufiiga, ii, p. 135. 

84 Apuntes Interesantes, pp. 42-43. 




Map of China 
Jan Huygen van Linschoten 

[From original (in colors), 




and East Indies 
(Amstelredam, CIO. 10. xcvi) 

in Boston Public L,ibrary~\ 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 61 

be punished by this court. 85 The Holy Inquisition 
transplanted to New Spain in 1569 stretched its long 
arm across the great ocean to the Philippines, in the 
person of a commissioner, for the preservation of the 
true faith. The Indians and Chinese were exempted 
from its jurisdiction. Its processes were roundabout, 
and must have given a considerable proportion of its 
accused a chance to die a natural death. The Com- 
missioner must first report the offense to the Court in 
New Spain ; if a trial was ordered, the accused must 
be sent to Mexico, and, if convicted, must be returned 
to the Philippines to receive punishment. 86 

The most peculiar feature of the old regime in the 
Philippines is to be found in the regulations of the 
commerce of the islands. In the Recopilacion de 
leyes de los reinos de las Indias, the code of Spanish 
colonial legislation, a whole title comprising seventy- 
nine laws is devoted to this subject. For thirty years 
after the conquest the commerce of the islands was 
unrestricted and their prosperity advanced with great 
rapidity. 87 Then came a system of restrictions, de- 
manded by the protectionists in Spain, which limited 
the commerce of the islands with America to a fixed 
annual amount, and effectively checked their 
economic development. All the old travelers 
marvel at the possibilities of the islands and at the 
blindness of Spain, but the policy absurd as it may 
seem was but a logical application of the protective 
system not essentially different from the forms which 
it assumes today in our own relations to Porto Rico, 
Cuba, and the Philippines. 

86 Zuniga, Estadismo, i, p. 246; Le Gentil, ii, p. 172. 
80 Le Gentil, ii, p. 172. 

87 Morga, p. 336. 



62 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

The Seville merchants through whose hands the 
Spanish export trade to the New World passed 
looked with apprehension upon the importation of 
Chinese fabrics into America and the exportation of 
American silver to pay for them. The silks of China 
undersold those of Spain in Mexico and Peru, and 
the larger the export of silver to the East the smaller 
to Spain. Consequently to protect Spanish industry 
and to preserve to Spanish producers the American 
market, 88 the shipment of Chinese cloths from Mex- 
ico to Peru was prohibited in 1587. In 1591 came 
the prohibition of all direct trade between Peru or 
other parts of South America and China or the 
Philippines, 89 and in 1593 a decree — not rigorously 
enforced till 1604 — which absolutely limited the 
trade between Mexico and the Philippines to 
$250,000 annually for the exports to Mexico, and to 
$500,000 for the imports from Mexico, to be carried 
in two ships not to excet * three hundred tons 
burden. 90 No Spanish subject was allowed to trade 
in or with China, and the Chinese trade was re- 
stricted to the merchants of that nation. 91 

All Chinese goods shipped to New Spain must be 
consumed there and the shipping of Chinese cloths to 
Peru in any amount whatever even for a gift, chari- 
table endowment, or for use in divine worship was 
absolutely prohibited. 92 As these regulations were 

88 Morga, ibid. 

89 Memorial dado al Rey por D. Juan Grau y Monfalcon, 
Procurado General de las Islas Filipinos. Docs. Ineditos del Ar- 
chivo de Indias, vi, p. 444. 

90 Recopilacionj lib. ix, tit. xxxv, ley vi and ley xv. As will be 
seen there was usually only one ship. 

91 Ibid., ley xxxiv. 
92 1 bid. , ley lxviii. 




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H93-I529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 63 

evaded, in 1636 all commerce was interdicted be- 
tween New Spain and Peru. 93 A commerce naturally 
so lucrative as that between the Philippines and New 
Spain when confined within such narrow limits 
yielded monopoly profits. It was like a lottery in 
which every ticket drew a prize. In these great 
profits every Spaniard was entitled to share in pro- 
portion to his capital or standing in the community. 94 
The assurance of this largess, from the beginnings of 
the system, discouraged individual industry and 
enterprise, and retarded the growth of Spanish 
population. 95 Le Gentil and Zufiiga give detailed 
descriptions of the method of conducting this state 
enterprise 96 after the limits had been raised to 
$500,000 and $1,000,000 respectively for the outgoing 
and return voyage. The capacity of the vessel was 
measured taking as a unit a bale about two and one- 
half feet long, sixteen inches broad and two feet high. 
If then the vessel could carry four thousand of these 
bales, each bale might be packed with goods up to a 
value of one hundred and twenty-five dollars. The 
right to ship was known as a boleta or ticket. The 
distribution of these tickets was determined at the 
town hall by a board made up of the governor, at- 
torney-general, the dean of the audiencia, one al- 
calde, one regidor and eight citizens. 97 

To facilitate the allotment and the sale of tickets 

93 Ibid., ley lxxviii. 

94 Ibid., ley xlv. 

95 Morga, p. 344. Zufiiga, i, pp. 271-274. "El barco de Aca- 
pulco ha sido la causa de que los espanoles hayan abandonado las 
riquezas naturales e industriales de las Islas." Ibid., p. 443. 

98 Le Gentil, ii, pp. 203-230 ; Zufiiga, i, p. 266 ff. 
97 Le Gentil, ii, p. 205 ; Careri, Voyage Round the World, 
Churchill's Voyages, iv, p. 477. 



64 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

they were divided into sixths. Tickets were ordi- 
narily worth in the later eighteenth century in times 
of peace eighty dollars to one hundred dollars, and 
in war time they rose to upwards of three hundred 
dollars. 98 Le Gentil tells us that in 1766 they sold for 
two hundred dollars and more, and that the galleon 
that year went loaded beyond the limit." Each of- 
ficial as the perquisite of his office had tickets. The 
regidores and alcaldes had eight. 

The small holders who did not care to take a ven- 
ture in the voyage disposed of their tickets to 
merchants or speculators, who borrowed money, 
usually of the religious corporations, at twenty-five to 
thirty per cent per annum to buy them up and who 
sometimes bought as many as two or three hundred. 100 
The command of the Acapulco galleon was the fattest 
office within the gift of the Governor, who bestowed 
it upon " whomsoever he desired to make happy for 
the commission," and was equivalent to a gift of from 
$50,000 to $ioo,ooo. 101 This was made up from 
commissions, part of the passage-money of passen- 
gers, from the sale of his freight tickets, and from the 
gifts of the merchants. Captain Arguelles told Careri 
in 1696 that his commissions would amount to 
$25,000 or $30,000, and that in all he would make 
$40,000; that the pilot would clear $20,000 and the 
mates $9,000 each. 102 The pay of the sailors was three 

98 Zuniga, i, p. 267. 
89 Le Gentil, ii, p. 205. 

100 Le Gentil, ii, p. 207. 

101 Zuniga, i, p. 268. 

102 Churchill's Voyages, iv, p. 491. I am aware that grave 
doubts as to the reality of Gemelli Careri's travels existed in the 
eighteenth century. Robertson says " it seems now to be a received 
opinion (founded as far as I know, on no good evidence) that 







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1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 65 

hundred and fifty dollars, of which seventy-five dol- 
lars was advanced before the start. The merchants 
expected to clear one hundred and fifty to two hun- 
dred per cent. The passenger fare at the end of the 
eighteenth century was $1,000 for the voyage to 
Acapulco, which was the hardest, and $500 for the 
return. 103 Careri's voyage to Acapulco lasted two 
hundred and four days. The ordinary time for the 
voyage to Manila was seventy- five to ninety days. 104 
Careri's description of his voyage is a vivid picture 
of the hardships of early ocean travel, when cabin 
passengers fared infinitely worse than cattle today. 
It was a voyage " which is enough to destroy a man, 
or make him unfit for anything as long as he lives ;" 
yet there were those who " ventured through it, four, 
six and some ten times." 105 

Careri was never out of Italy, and that his famous Giro del Mondo 
is an account of a fictitious voyage." Note 150, History of 
America. The most specific charges against Careri relate to his 
account of his experiences in China. See Prevost's Histoire des 
Voyages, v, pp. 469-70. His description of the Philippines and of 
the voyage to Acapulco is full of details that have every appearance 
of being the result of personal observation. In fact, I do not see 
how it is possible that this part of his book is not authentic. The 
only book of travels which contains a detailed account of the 
voyage from Manila to Acapulco written before Careri published 
that is described in Medina's Bibliografia Espanola de Filipinas is 
the Peregrination del Mundo del Doctor D. Pedro Cubero Se- 
bastian, of which an edition was published in 1682 in Naples, 
Careri's own home ; but Careri's account is no more like Cubero's 
than any two descriptions of the same voyage are bound to be; 
nor is it clear that Careri ever saw Cubero Sebastian's narrative. 

103 Zufiiga, i, p. 268. Careri mentions the case of a Dominican 
who paid five hundred dollars for the eastern passage. Op. cit. p. 
478; on page 423 he says the usual fare for cabin and diet was 
five hundred to six hundred dollars. 

104 Churchill's Voyages, iv, p. 499. 

105 Op. cit. p. 491. Yet Careri had no such experience as befell 
Cubero Sebastian in his voyage. When they were nearing the end 



66 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

Acapulco in New Spain had little reason for 
existence, save for the annual fair at the time of the 
arrival of the Manila ship, and the silver fleet from 
Peru. That event transformed what might more 
properly be called " a poor village of fishermen " 
into " a populous city," for the space of about two 
weeks. 106 

The commerce between the Philippines and 
Mexico was conducted in this manner from 1604 to 
171 8, when the silk manufacturers of Spain secured 
the prohibition of the importation of Chinese silk 
goods into New Spain on account of the decline of 
their industry. A prolonged struggle before the 
Council of the Indies ensued, and in 1734 the prohi- 
bition was revoked and the east and west cargoes 
fixed at $500,000 and $1,000,000 respectively. 107 The 
last nao, as the Manila- Acapulco galleon was called, 
sailed from Manila in 181 1, and the final return 
voyage was made in 1815. After that the commerce 
fell into private hands, the annual exports were 
limited to $750,000 and the ports of San Bias 
(Mexico), Guayaquil (Ecuador), and Callao 
(Peru) were opened to it. 

of the voyage a very fatal disease, " el berben, o mal de Loanda " 
(probably the same as beri-beri), broke out, as well as dysentery, 
from which few escaped who were attacked. There were ninety- 
two deaths in fifteen days. Out of four hundred persons on board, 
two hundred and eight died before Acapulco was reached. Pere- 
grination del Mundo de D. Pedro Cubero Sebastian, Zaragoza, 
1688, p. 268. 

106 Careri: Op. tit. p. 503. 

107 Montero y Vidal: Hist. Gen. de Filipinas, i, pp. 458, 463. 
On page 461 is a brief bibliography of the history of Philippine 
commerce. According to Montero y Vidal, the best modern history 
of Philippine commerce is La Liber tad de comer do en las islas 
Filipinas, by D. Manuel de Azcarraga y Palmero, Madrid, 1872. 



H93-I529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 67 

Other changes were the establishment of direct 
communication with Spain and trade with Europe 
by a national vessel in 1766. 108 These expeditions 
lasted till 1783 and their place was taken in 1785 by 
the Royal Philippine Company, organized with a 
capital of $8,000,000, and granted the monopoly of 
the trade between Spain and the islands. 109 The 
Manila merchants resented the invasion of their 
monopoly of the export trade, and embarrassed the 
operations of the company as much as they could. 110 
It ceased to exist in 1830. 

By this system for two centuries the South 
American market for manufactures was reserved 
exclusively for Spain, but the protection did not 
prevent Spanish industry from decay and did retard 
the well-being and progress of South America. 
Between Mexico and the Philippines a limited trade 
was allowed, the profits of which were the perquisites 
of the Spaniards living in the Philippines and con- 
tributed to the religious endowments. But this 
monopoly was of no permanent advantage to the 
Spanish residents. It was too much like stock- 
jobbing, and sapped all spirit of industry. Zufiiga 
says that the commerce made a few rich in a short 
time and with little labor, but they were very few; 
that there were hardly five Spaniards in Manila 
worth $100,000, nor a hundred worth $40,000, the 
rest either lived on the King's pay or in poverty. 111 
" Every morning one could see in the streets of 
Manila, in the greatest poverty and asking alms, the 

108 Montero y Vidal, ii, p. 122. 

109 Ibid., ii, p. 297. 

110 Comyn : State of the Philippine Islands, pp. 83-97. 

111 Estadismo, i, p. 272. 



68 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

sons of men who had made a fine show and left much 
money, which their sons had squandered because they 
had not been well trained in youth." 112 The great 
possibilities of Manila as an entrepot of the Asiatic 
trade were unrealized; for although the city enjoyed 
open trade with the Chinese, Japanese, and other 
orientals, 113 it was denied to Europeans and the 
growth of that conducted by the Chinese and others 
was always obstructed by the lack of return cargoes 
owing to the limitations placed upon the trade with 
America and to the disinclination of the Filipinos to 
work to produce more than was enough to insure 
them a comfortable living and pay their tributes. 
That the system was detrimental to the economic 
progress of the islands was always obvious and its 
evils were repeatedly demonstrated by Spanish 
officials. Further it was not only detrimental to the 
prosperity of the islands but it obstructed the de- 
velopment of Mexico. 

112 Zufiiga, i, p. 274. 

Le Gentil remarked that as the Spaniards in Manila had no 
landed estates to give them an assured and permanent income, they 
were dependent upon the Acapulco trade, and had no resources to 
fall back upon if the galleon were lost. Money left in trust was 
often lost or embezzled by executors or guardians, and it was rare 
that wealth was retained three generations in the same family. 
Voyage, ii, pp. IIO-II2. 

113 Of the commerce with China it is not necessary to speak at 
length, as a full account of it is given in Morga. It was entirely 
in the hands of the Chinese and Mestizos and brought to Manila 
oriental textiles of all kinds, objects of art, jewelry, metal work 
and metals, nails, grain, preserves, fruit, pork, fowls, domestic 
animals, pets, " and a thousand other gewgaws and ornaments of 
little cost and price which are valued among the Spaniards." 
(Morga, p. 339.) Besides the Chinese, that with Japan, Borneo, 
the Moluccas, Siam, and India was so considerable that in spite 
of the obstructions upon the commerce with America, Manila 
seemed to the traveler Careri (p. 444) " one of the greatest places 
of trade in the world." 



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1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 69 

Grau y Monfalcon in 1637 reported that there 
were fourteen thousand people employed in Mexico 
in manufacturing the raw silk imported from China. 
This industry might be promoted by the relaxation of 
the restrictions on trade. It would also be for the ad- 
vantage of the Indians of Peru to be able to buy for 
five pence a yard linen from the Philippines, rather 
than to be compelled to purchase that of Rouen at 
ten times the price. 114 But such reasoning was re- 
ceived then as it often is now, and no great change 
was made for nearly two centuries. 

We have now passed in review the political, 
ecclesiastical, and commercial administration of the 
Philippines in the olden time; and a general survey 
of some of the more striking results of the system as a 
whole may now be made. This is especially neces- 
sary on account of the traditional and widely 
prevalent opinion that the Spanish colonial system 
was always and everywhere a system of oppression 
and exploitation; whereas, as a matter of fact, the 
Spanish system, as a system of laws, always impeded 
the effectual exploitation of the resources of their 
colonies, and was far more humane in its treatment of 
dependent peoples than either the French or English 
systems. 

If, on the one hand, the early conquistadores 
treated the natives with hideous cruelty, the Spanish 
government legislated more systematically and 
benevolently to protect them than any other coloniz- 
ing power. In the time of the first conquests things 
moved too rapidly for the home government in those 
days of slow communication, and the horrors of the 

114 Documentos Ineditos del Archivo de Indias, v, pp. 475"77> 



70 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. I 

clash between ruthless gold-seekers and the simple 
children of nature, as depicted by the impassioned 
pen of Las Casas and spread broadcast over Europe, 
came to be the traditional and accepted characteristic 
of Spanish rule. 115 The Spanish colonial empire 
lasted four hundred years and it is simple historical 
justice that it should not be judged by its beginnings 
or by its collapse. 

The remoteness of the Philippines, and the absence 
of rich deposits of gold and silver, made it compara- 
tively easy for the government to secure the execution 
of its humane legislation, and for the church to 
dominate the colony and guide its development as a 
great mission for the benefit of the inhabitants. 118 
To the same result contributed the unenlightened 
protectionism of the Seville merchants, for the 
studied impediments to the development of the 
Philippine-American trade effectually blocked the 
exploitation of the islands. In view of the history of 
our own Southern States, not less than of the history 
of the West Indies it should never be forgotten that 
although the Philippine islands are in the Tropics, 
they have never been the scene of the horrors of the 
African slave trade or of the life-wasting labors of 
the old plantation system. 

Whether we compare the condition of the natives 
of the other islands in the Eastern Archipelago or of 
the peasants of Europe at the same time the general 

115 It would be vain to guess how many hundred people there 
are who are familiar with the denunciations of Las Casas to one 
who knows anything of the more than six hundred laws defining 
the status and aiming at the protection of the Indians in the 
Recopilacion. 

116 Cf. Jagor: Reisen in den Philippinen, p. 31. 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 7 1 

well-being of the Philippine mission villagers was to 
be envied. A few quotations from unimpeachable 
witnesses, travelers of wide knowledge of the Orient, 
may be given in illustration and proof of this view. 
The famous French explorer of the Pacific, La 
Perouse, who was in Manila in 1787, wrote: " Three 
million people inhabit these different islands and 
that of Luzon contains nearly a third of them. These 
people seemed to me no way inferior to those of 
Europe ; they cultivate the soil with intelligence, they 
are carpenters, cabinet-makers, smiths, jewelers, 
weavers, masons, etc. I have gone through their 
villages and I have found them kind, hospitable, 
affable," etc. 117 

Coming down a generation later the Englishman 
Crawfurd, the historian of the Indian Archipelago, 
who lived at the court of the Sultan of Java as British 
resident, draws a comparison between the condition 
of the Philippines and that of the other islands of the 
East that deserves careful reflection. 

" It is remarkable, that the Indian administration 
of one of the worst governments of Europe, and that 
in which the general principles of legislation and 
good government are least understood, — one too, 
which has never been skillfully executed, should, 
upon the whole, have proved the least injurious to 
the happiness and prosperity of the native inhabitants 
of the country. This, undoubtedly, has been the 
character of the Spanish connection with the Philip- 
pines, with all its vices, follies, and illiberalities; and 
the present condition of these islands affords an 
unquestionable proof of the fact. Almost every 

117 Voyage de La Perouse autour du Monde, Paris, 1797, ii, p. 
347- 



72 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

other country of the Archipelago is, at this day, in 
point of wealth, power, and civilization, in a worse 
state than when Europeans connected themselves 
with them three centuries back. The Philippines 
alone have improved in civilization, wealth, and 
populousness. When discovered most of the tribes 
were a race of half-naked savages, inferior to all the 
great tribes, who were pushing, at the same time, an 
active commerce, and enjoying a respectable share 
of the necessaries and comforts of a civilized state. 
Upon the whole, they are at present superior in 
almost everything to any of the other races. This is 
a valuable and instructive fact." 118 

This judgment of Crawfurd in 1820 was echoed 
by Mallat (who was for a time in charge of the prin- 
cipal hospital in Manila), in 1846, when he expressed 
his belief that the inhabitants of the Philippines 
enjoyed a freer, happier, and more placid life than 
was to be found in the colonies of any other nation. 119 

Sir John Bowring, who was long Governor of 
Hong Kong, was impressed with the absence of 
caste: "Generally speaking, I found a kmd and 
generous urbanity prevailing, — friendly intercourse 
where that intercourse had been sought, — the lines 
of demarcation and separation less marked and im- 

118 History of the Indian Archipelago, etc., by John Crawfurd, 
F. R. S. Edinburgh, 1820, vol. ii, pp. 447-48. 

119 That I take to be his meaning. His words are: " Ces in- 
stitutions (i. e., the local administration) si sages et si paternelles 
ont valu a l'Espagne la conservation d'une colonie dont les habitants 
jouissent, a notre avis, de plus de liberte, de bonheur et de tranquil- 
lete que ceux d'aucune autre nation." i, p. 357. Cf. also his final 
chapter : " L'idigene des Philippines est l'homme le plus heureux 
du monde. Malgre son tribut, il n'est pas d'etre vivant en societe 
qui paye moins d'impot que lui. II est libre, il est heureux et ne 
pense nullement a se soulever." ii, p. 369. 



H93-I529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 73 

passable than in most oriental countries. I have seen 
at the same table Spaniard, Mestizo and Indian — 
priest, civilian, and soldier. No doubt a common 
religion forms a common bond ; but to him who has 
observed the alienations and repulsions of caste in 
many parts of the eastern world — caste, the great 
social curse — the binding and free intercourse of 
man with man in the Philippines is a contrast worth 
admiring." 120 Not less striking in its general bearing 
than Crawfurd's verdict is that of the German 
naturalist Jagor who visited the islands in 1859- 1860. 
" To Spain belongs the glory of having raised to a 
relatively high grade of civilization, improving 
greatly their condition, a people which she found on 
a lower stage of culture distracted by petty wars and 
despotic rule. Protected from outside enemies, 
governed by mild laws, the inhabitants of those 
splendid islands, taken as a whole, have no doubt 
passed a more comfortable life during recent cen- 
turies than the people of any tropical country whether 
under their own or European rule. This is to be 
accounted for in part by the peculiar conditions 
which protected the natives from ruthless exploita- 
tion. Yet the monks contributed an essential part to 
this result. Coming from among the common people, 

120 A Visit to the Philippine Islands, London, 1859, p. 18. Cf. 
the recent opinion of the English engineer, Frederic H. Sawyer, 
who lived in Luzon for fourteen years. " The islands were 
badly governed by Spain, yet Spaniards and natives lived together 
in great harmony, and I do not know where I could find a colony 
in which Europeans mixed as much socially with the natives. Not 
in Java, where a native of position must dismount to salute the 
humblest Dutchman. Not in British India, where the English- 
woman has now made the gulf between British and native into a 
bottomless pit." The Inhabitants of the Philippines, New York, 
1900, p. 125. 



74 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol I 

used to poverty and self-denial, their duties led them 
into intimate relations with the natives and they were 
naturally fitted to adapt the foreign religion and 
morals to practical use. So, too, in later times, when 
they came to possess rich livings, and their pious zeal, 
in general, relaxed as their revenues increased, they 
still contributed most essentially to bring about con- 
ditions, both good and bad, which we have described, 
since, without families of their own and without re- 
fined culture, intimate association with the children 
of the soil was a necessity to them. Even their 
haughty opposition to the secular authorities was 
generally for the advantage of the natives." 121 
Similar testimony from a widely different source is 
contained in the charming sketch " Malay Life in the 
Philippines " by William Gifford Palgrave, whose 
profound knowledge of oriental life and character 
and his experience in such divergent walks in life as 
soldier and Jesuit missionary in India, pilgrim to 
Mecca, and English consul in Manila, give his 
opinion more than ordinary value. 

" To clerical government," he writes^ " para- 
doxical as the statement may sound in modern 
European ears, the Philippine islands owe, more than 
to anything else, their internal prosperity, the Malay 
population its sufficiency and happiness. This it is 
that again and again has stood a barrier of mercy and 
justice between the weaker and stronger race, the 
vanquished and the victor; this has been the steady 
protector of the native inhabitants, this their faithful 
benefactor, their sufficient leader and guide. With 
the ' Cura ' for father, and the ' Capitan ' for his 

121 Reisen in den Philippinen, p. 287. 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 75 

adjutant, a Philippine hamlet feels and knows little 
of the vexations inseparable from direct and foreign 
official administration; and if under such a rule 
1 progress,' as we love to term it, be rare, disaffection 
and want are rarer still." 

As compared with India, the absence of famines 
is significant; and this he attributes in part to the 
prevalence of small holdings. " Not so much what 
they have, but rather what they have not, makes the 
good fortune of the Philippines, the absence of 
European Enterprise, the absence of European 
Capital. A few European capitalist settlers, a 
few giant estates, a few central factories, a few 
colossal money-making combinations of organized 
labour and gainful produce, and all the equable 
balance of property and production, of ownership 
and labour that now leaves to the poorest cottager 
enough, and yet to the total colony abundance to 
spare, would be disorganized, displaced, upset; to be 
succeeded by day labour, pauperism, government 
relief, subscriptions, starvation. Europe, gainful, 
insatiate Europe would reap the harvest; but to the 
now happy, contented, satiate Philippine Archi- 
pelago, what would remain but the stubble, but 
leanness, want, unrest, misery? " 122 

The latest witness to the average well-being of the 
natives under the old system whom I shall quote is 
Mr. Sawyer. " If the natives fared badly at the 
hands of recent authors, the Spanish Administration 
fared worse, for it has been painted in the darkest 
tints, and unsparingly condemned. It was indeed 
corrupt and defective, and what government is not? 

122 Cornhill Magazine, 1878, pp. 161, 167. This article is re- 
printed in Palgrave's Ulysses, or Scenes in Many Lands. 



?6 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

More than anything else it was behind the age, yet 
it was not without its good points. 

" Until an inept bureaucracy was substituted for 
the old paternal rule, and the revenue quadrupled by 
increased taxation, the Filipinos were as happy a 
community as could be found in any colony. The 
population greatly multiplied ; they lived in compe- 
tence, if not in affluence; cultivation was extended, 
and the exports steadily increased. — Let us be just; 
what British, French, or Dutch colony, populated 
by natives can compare with the Philippines as they 
were until 1895? " 123 

These striking judgments, derived from such a 
variety of sources, are a sufficient proof that our 
popular ideas of the Spanish colonial system are 
quite as much in need of revision as popular ideas 
usually are. 

Yet one must not forget that the Spanish mission 
system, however useful and benevolent as an agency 
in bringing a barbarous people within the pale of 
Christian civilization, could not be regarded as per- 
manent unless this life is looked upon simply as a 
preparation for heaven. As an educative system it 
had its bounds and limits ; it could train to a certain 
point and no farther. To prolong it beyond that 
stage would be to prolong carefully nurtured child- 
hood to the grave, never allowing it to be displaced 
by self-reliant manhood. The legal status of the 
Indians before the law was that of minors, and no 
provision was made for their arriving at their 
majority. The clergy looked upon these wards of 
the State as the school-children of the church, and 

123 The Inhabitants of the Philippines, pp. vi, viii. 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 77 

compelled the observance of her ordinances even 
with the rod. La Perouse says : " The only thought 
was to make Christians and never citizens. This 
people was divided into parishes, and subjected to 
the most minute and extravagant observances. Each 
fault, each sin is still punished by the rod. Failure 
to attend prayers and mass has its fixed penalty, and 
punishment is administered to men and women at 
the door of the church by order of the pastor." 12 * Le 
Gentil describes such a scene in a little village a few 
miles from Manila, where one Sunday afternoon he 
saw a crowd, chiefly Indian women, following a 
woman who was to be whipped at the church door 
for not having been to mass. 125 

The prevalence of a supervision and discipline so 
parental for the mass of the people in the colony 
could but react upon the ruling class, and La Perouse 
remarks upon the absence of individual liberty in the 
islands : " No liberty is enjoyed : inquisitors and 
monks watch the consciences; the oidors (judges of 
the Audiencia) all private affairs; the governor, the 
most innocent movements; an excursion to the 
interior, a conversation come before his jurisdiction ; 
in fine, the most beautiful and charming country in 

124 " lis font voir beaucoup d'inclination et d'empressement pour 
aller a leglise lesjours de Fetes et Solemnit.es; mais pour ouir la 
Messe les jours de preceptes, pour se confesser et communier lorsque 
la Sainte Eglise Fordonne, il faut employer le fouet, et les traiter 
comme des enfans a l'ecole." Quoted by Le Gentil, ii, p. 61, from 
Friar Juan Francisco de San Antonio's Chronicas de la Apostolica 
Provincia de San Gregorio, etc., commonly known as the Franciscan 
History. It will be remembered that in our own country in the 
eighteenth century college discipline was still enforced by corporal 
punishment; and that attendance upon church was compulsory, 
where there was an established church, as in New England. 

125 Voyage, ii, p. 62. 



7$ THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

the world is certainly the last that a free man would 
choose to live in." " 8 

Intellectual apathy, one would naturally suppose, 
must be the consequence of such sedulous oversight, 
and intellectual progress impossible. Progress in 
scientific knowledge was, indeed, quite effectually 
blocked. 

The French astronomer Le Gentil gives an inter- 
esting account of the conditions of scientific knowl- 
edge at the two Universities in Manila. These 
institutions seemed to be the last refuge of the 
scholastic ideas and methods that had been discarded 
in Europe. A Spanish engineer frankly confessed to 
him that " in the sciences Spain was a hundred years 
behind France, and that in Manila they were a hun- 
dred years behind Spain." Nothing of electricity 
was known but the name, and making experiments in 
it had been forbidden by the Inquisition. Le Gentil 
also strongly suspected that the professor of Mathe- 
matics at the Jesuit College still held to the Ptolemaic 
system. 127 

But when we keep in mind the small number of 
ecclesiastics in the islands we must clear them of the 
charge of intellectual idleness. Their activity, on 
the other hand, considering the climate was remark- 
able. 188 An examination of J. T. Medina's monu- 
mental work 129 on printing in Manila and of 

126 Voyage, ii, p. 350. 

127 Voyage, ii, pp. 95, 97. 

128 Le Gentil says the lassitude of the body reacts upon the 
mind. "In this scorching region one can only vegetate. Insanity 
is commonly the result of hard study and excessive application." 
Voyage, ii, p. 94. 

129 La Imprenta en Manila desde sus origenes hasta 1810, 
Santiago de Chile, 1896. 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 79 

Retana's supplement 130 reveals nearly five hundred 
titles of works printed in the islands before 1800. 
This of course takes no account of the works sent or 
brought to Spain for publication, which would neces- 
sarily comprise a large proportion of those of general 
rather than local interest, including of course the most 
important histories. To these should be added no 
small number of grammars and dictionaries of the 
native languages, and missionary histories, that have 
never been printed. 131 The monastic presses in the 
islands naturally were chiefly used for the production 
of works of religious edification, such as catechisms, 
narratives of missions, martyrdoms, lives of saints, 
religious histories, and hand-books to the native 
languages. Simpler manuals of devotion, rosaries, 
catechisms, outlines of Christian doctrine, stories of 
martyrdoms, etc., were translated for the Indians. 
Of these there were about sixty in the Tagal, and 
from three to ten or twelve each in the Visayan, 
Vicol, Pampanga, Ilocan, Panayan, and Pangasinan 
languages. 132 

130 Adiciones y Observaciones a La Imprenta en Manila, Mad- 
drid, 1899. 

131 For representative lists of these, see Blumentritt's privately 
printed Bibliotheca Philippina, Theile i and ii. 

132 It is, all things considered, a singular fact that in all that 
list there is no translation of parts of the Bible, except of course 
the fragmentary paraphrases in the catechism and doctrinals. 
The only item indicating first-hand Biblical study in the Philip- 
pines under the old regime that has come to my notice in the bib- 
liographies of Medina and Retana is this, that Juan de la Con- 
cepcion the historian left in manuscript a translation of the Holy 
Bible into Spanish. La Imprenta en Manila, p. 221. This failure 
to translate the Bible into the native languages was not peculiar 
to Spanish rule in the Philippines. Protestant Holland, far be- 
hind Spain in providing for native education, was equally opposed 
to the circulation of the Bible. " Even as late as the second or 
third decade of this century the New Testament was considered 



80 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

If, as is credibly asserted, the knowledge of reading 
and writing was more generally diffused in the 
Philippines than among the common people of 
Europe, 133 we have the singular result that the islands 
contained relatively more people who could read, 
and less reading matter of any but purely religious 
interest, than any other community in the world. 
Yet it would not be altogether safe to assume that in 
the eighteenth century the list of printed translations 
into the native languages comprised everything of 
European literature available for reading; for the 
Spanish government, in order to promote the learn- 
ing of Spanish, had prohibited at times the printing 
of books in Tagal. 134 Furthermore, Zuniga says ex- 
plicitly that " after the coming of the Spaniards they 
(V. e. the people in Luzon) have had comedies, 
interludes, tragedies, poems, and every kind of 
literary work translated from the Spanish, without 
producing a native poet who has composed even an 
interlude." 135 Again, Zuniga describes a eulogistic 
poem of welcome addressed by a Filipino villager to 
Commodore Alava. This loa, as this species of com- 
position was called, was replete with references to the 
voyages of Ulysses, the travels of Aristotle, the unfor- 

a revolutionary work, and Herr Bruckner, who translated it, had 
his edition destroyed by Government." Guillemard, Malaysia 
and the Pacific Archipelagoes, p. 129. 

133 Mallat says that the elements were more generally taught 
than in most of the country districts of Europe (i, p. 386) and 
quotes the assertion of the Archbishop of Manila : " There are 
many villages such as Argas, Dalaguete, Bolohon, Cebu, and sev- 
eral in the province of Iloilo, where not a single boy or girl can be 
found who cannot read and write, an advantage of which few 
places in Europe can boast." Ibid., p. 388. 

134 Estadismo, i, p. 300. 

135 Estadismo, i, p. 63. 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 8 1 

tunate death of Pliny, and other incidents in ancient 
history. The allusions indicate some knowledge at 
any rate outside the field of Christian doctrine, even 
if it was so slight as not to make it seem beyond the 
limits of poetic license to have Aristotle drown him- 
self in chagrin at not being able to measure the 
depths of the sea, or to have Pliny throw himself into 
Vesuvius in his zeal to investigate the causes of its 
eruption. The literary interests of the Indians found 
their chief expression however in the adaptation of 
Spanish plays for presentation on religious holidays. 
Zuniga gives an entertaining description of these 
plays. They were usually made up from three or 
four Spanish tragedies, the materials of which were 
so ingeniously interwoven that the mosaic seemed a 
single piece. The characters were always Moors and 
Christians, and the action centered in the desire of 
Moors to marry Christian princesses or of Christians 
to marry Moorish princesses. The Christian appears 
at a Moorish tournament or vice versa. The hero 
and heroine fall in love but their parents oppose 
obstacles to the match. To overcome the difficulties 
in case of a Moor and Christian princess was com- 
paratively easy. A war opportunely breaks out in 
which, after prodigies of valor, the Moor is con- 
verted and baptized, and the wedding follows. The 
case is not so easy when a Christian prince loves a 
Moorish lady. Since he can never forsake his 
religion his tribulations are many. He is imprisoned, 
and his princess aids in his attempt to escape, which 
sometimes costs him his life; or if the scene is laid 
in war time either the princess is converted and 
escapes to the Christian army, or the prince dies a 
tragic death. The hero is usually provided with a 



82 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i 

Christ, or other image or relic, given him by his 
dying mother, which extricates him from his many 
plights. He meets lions and bears, and highwaymen 
attack him ; but from all he escapes by a miracle. If, 
however, some principal personage is not taken off 
by a tragic end, the Indians find the play insipid. 
During the intermission one or two clowns come out 
and raise a laugh by jests that are frigid enough " to 
freeze hot water in the tropics." After the play is 
over a clown appears again and criticizes the play 
and makes satirical comments on the village officials. 
These plays usually lasted three days. 136 Le Gentil 
attended one of them and says that he does not believe 
any one in the world was ever so bored as he was. 1 " 
Yet the Indians were passionately fond of these 
performances. 138 

If one may judge from Retana's catalogue of his 
Philippine collection arranged in chronological or- 
der, the sketch we have given of the literature acces- 
sible to Filipinos who could not read Spanish in the 
eighteenth century would serve not unfairly for much 
of the nineteenth. The first example of secular prose 
fiction I have noted in his lists is Friar Bustamente's 
pastoral novel depicting the quiet charms of country 
life as compared with the anxieties and tribulations 
of life in Manila. 139 His collection did not contain 
so far as I noticed a single secular historical narra- 
tive in Tagal or anything in natural science. 

136 Zuniga, i, pp. 73-75- 

137 Voyage, ii, p. 131. 

138 Ibid., p. 132, and Zuniga, i, p. 76. A modern work on this 
drama is El Teatro tagalo by Vicente Barrantes, Madrid, 1889. 

139 Number 877 in Retana's Biblioteca Filipina. This novel 
was published in Manila in 1885. Friar Bustamente was a 
Franciscan. \ 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 83 

Sufficient familiarity with Spanish to compensate 
for this lack of books of secular knowledge was en- 
joyed by very few Indians in the country districts 
and these had learned it mainly while servants of the 
curate. It was the common opinion of the Spanish 
authorities that the Friars purposely neglected in- 
structing the Indians in Spanish, in order to perpet- 
uate their hold upon them; but Zuniga repels this 
charge as unjust and untrue. 140 

It is obvious that it was impracticable for the In- 
dians to learn Spanish under the mission system. For 
the pastor of a pueblo of several hundred families to 
teach the children Spanish was an impossibility. A 
few words or simple phrases might be learned, but 
the lack of opportunity for constant or even frequent 
practice of the language in general conversation 
would make their attainments in it far below those 
of American grammar-school children in German 
in cities where that has been a compulsory study. 141 
As long as the mission system isolated the pueblos 
from contact with the world at large, it of necessity 
followed that the knowledge of Spanish would be 
practically limited to such Indians as lived in Manila 

140 Estadismo, i, pp. 60-61. Commodore Alava was on his way 
to make scientific observations of the volcano of Taal. 

Le Gentil writes: " Selon une Ordonnance du Roi, renouvelee 
peut-etre cent fois, il est ordonne aux Religieux d'enseigner le 
castillan aux jeunes Indiens; mais Sa Majeste, m'ont unanimement 
assure les Espagnoles a Manille, n'a point encore ete obeie jusqu'a 
ce jour." Voyage, ii, p. 184. Cf. Zuniga, Estadismo, i, pp. 299- 
300. 

For some of these ordinances see Retana's notes to Zuniga, ii, 
P- 57 ff- 

141 Cf. Retana's views expressed ten years ago upon the im- 
practicability of supplanting to any extent the Tagal language by 
the Spanish. The same considerations apply equally well to 
English. Estadismo, ii, p. 59 ff. 



84 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. 1 

or the larger towns, or learned it in the households of 
the Friars. Slavery with its forced transplanting 
has been the only means by which large masses of 
alien or lower races have been lifted into the circle of 
European thought and endowed with a European 
language. If such a result is secured in the future 
in any large measure for the Filipino, it can be ac- 
complished only by the translation of English or 
Spanish literature into the Tagal and other lan- 
guages, on a scale not less generous than the work of 
the Friars in supplying the literature of religious 
edification. This will be a work of not less than two 
or three generations, and of a truly missionary de- 
votion. 

We have now surveyed in its general aspects the 
old regime in the Philippines, and supplied the neces- 
sary material upon which to base a judgment of this 
contribution of Spain to the advancement of civili- 
zation. In this survey certain things stand out in 
contrast to the conventional judgment of the Spanish 
colonial system. The conquest was humane, and 
was effected by missionaries more than by warriors. 
The sway of Spain was benevolent, although the ad- 
ministration was not free from the taint of financial 
corruption. Neither the islands nor their inhabi- 
tants were exploited. The colony in fact was a con- 
stant charge upon the treasury of New Spain. The 
success of the enterprise was not measured by the ex- 
ports and imports, but by the number of souls put in 
the way of salvation. The people received the bene- 
fits of Christian civilization, as it was understood in 
Spain in the days of that religious revival which we 
call the Catholic Reaction. This Christianity im- 
posed the faith and the observances of the mediaeval 



1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 85 

church, but it did for the Philippine islanders who 
received it just what it did for the Franks or Angles 
a thousand years earlier. It tamed their lives, ele- 
vated the status of women, established the Christian 
family, and gave them the literature of the devotional 
life.y 

Nor did they pay heavily for these blessings. The 
system of government was inexpensive, and the re- 
ligious establishment was mainly supported by the 
landed estates of the orders. Church fees may have 
been at times excessive, but the occasions for such 
fees were infrequent. The tenants of the church es- 
tates found the friars easy landlords. Zufiiga de- 
scribes a great estate of the Augustinians near Manila 
of which the annual rental was not over $1,500, while 
the annual produce was estimated to be not less than 
$70,000, for it supported about four thousand 
people. 142 The position of women was fully as good 
among the Christian Indians of the Philippines as 
among the Christian people of Europe. But con- 
spicuous among the achievements of the conquest and 
conversion of the islands in the field of humanitarian 
progress, when we consider the conditions in other 
European tropical colonies, have been the prohibi- 
tion of slavery and the unremitting efforts to eradi- 
cate its disguised forms. These alone are a sufficient 
proof that the dominating motives in the Spanish and 
clerical policies were humane and not commercial. 
Not less striking proof of the comfortable prosperity 
of the natives on the whole under the old Spanish 
rule has been the steady growth of the population. 
At the time of the conquest the population in all 

142 EstadismOj i, pp. 12-13. 



86 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. I 

probability did not exceed a half-million. In the 
first half of the eighteenth century according to the 
historian of the Franciscans, San Antonio, the Chris- 
tian population was about 830,000. At the opening 
of the nineteenth century Zufiiga estimated the total 
at a million and a half as over 300,000 tributes were 
paid. The official estimate in 18 19 was just short of 
2,600,000; by 1845 Buzeta calculates the number at a 
little short of four millions. In the next half century 
it nearly doubled. 143 

In view of all these facts one must readily accord 
assent to Zuniga's simple tribute to the work of Spain. 
" The Spanish rule has imposed very few burdens 
upon these Indians, and has delivered them from 
many misfortunes which they suffered from the con- 
stant warfare waged by one district with another, 
whereby many died, and others lived wretched lives 
as slaves. For this reason the population increased 
very slowly, as is now the case with the infidels of the 
mountain regions who do not acknowledge subjection 
to the King of Spain. Since the conquest there has 
been an increase in well-being and in population. 
Subjection to the King of Spain has been very ad- 
vantageous in all that concerns the body. I will not 
speak of the advantage of knowledge of the true God, 
and of the opportunity to obtain eternal happiness 
for the soul, for I write not as a missionary but as a 
philosopher." 144 

143 Retana's Zufiiga, ii, p. 527. 

144 Estadismo, i, p. 174. I cannot take leave of Zuniga's book 
without recording my opinion that it is the finest flower of the 
Philippine literature. Zufiiga did for the island of Luzon what 
Arthur Young did for France a few years earlier, or to take an 
apter parallel, what President Dwight did for New England. 
His careful observations, relieved of tedium by a rare charm of 



1 493-1 529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 87 

The old regime in the Philippines has disappeared 
forever. In hardly more than a generation the peo- 
ple have passed from a life which was so remote 
from the outside contemporary world that they might 
as well have been living in the middle ages in some 
sheltered nook, equally protected from the physical 
violence and the intellectual strife of the outside 
world, and entirely oblivious of the progress of 
knowledge. They find themselves suddenly plunged 
into a current that hurls them along resistlessly. 
Baptized with fire and blood, a new and strange life 
is thrust upon them and they face the struggle for 
existence under conditions which spare no weakness 
and relentlessly push idleness or incapacity to the 
wall. What will be the outcome no man can tell. 
To the student of history and of social evolution it 
will be an experiment of profound interest. 

Edward Gaylord Bourne 

Yale University, October, 1902. 



style, his sweetness of temper, quiet humor, his love of nature and 
of man all combine to make his " Travels " a work that would be 
accorded a conspicuous place in the literature of any country. An 
English translation will appear in the present series. 



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